"This report reviews five pieces of legislation affecting the freedoms of assembly and expression that have been introduced in recent years in Iraq. Of these, only one, the Journalists Rights Law (Journalist Law), has actually been passed into law, in August 2011. The other four – the draft Commis
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sion of Media and Communication Law (draft CMC Law), the draft Informatics Crimes Law (draft Internet Law), the draft Political Parties Law (draft Parties Law) and the draft Law of Expression, Assembly, and Peaceful Protest (draft Assembly Law) – have not yet been formally adopted as laws. Together, the five laws cover a wide range of issues including restrictions on the content of what may be published or broadcast, whether over the airwaves or the Internet or via some other media, the establishment of political parties, how to apply to hold an assembly or demonstration, restrictions on such events, the overall system for regulating broadcasting, including the oversight body and the regimes for licensing and controlling content, and special rules for journalists. This report assesses the rules contained in these laws against constitutional and international human rights standards, in particular relating to freedom of assembly and expression." (Introduction, page 3)
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"Examines the actors, structures and themes that shaped the WSIS with a particular focus on the role played by civil society. The book investigates how civil society self-organization has continued post-WSIS through the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and other policymaking venues, and reflects on w
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hat the WSIS experience reveals about the challenges and opportunities embedded in the notion of multi-stakeholder governance and its implications for understanding global communication." (Publisher description)
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"An Introduction to Internet Governance provides a comprehensive overview of the main issues and actors in this fi eld. The book is written in a clear and accessible way, supplemented with numerous fi gures and illustrations. It focuses on technical, legal, economic, development, and sociocultural a
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spects of Internet governance, providing a brief introduction, a summary of major questions and controversies, and a survey of different views and approaches for each issue. The book offers a practical framework for analysis and discussion on Internet governance. Since 1997 more than 1000 diplomats, computer specialists, civil society activists and academics have attended training courses based on the text and approach presented in this book. With every delivery of the course, materials are updated and improved. This regular updating makes the book particularly useful as a teaching resource for introductory studies in Internet governance." (Back cover)
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"If carried out properly, the digital switchover can safeguard human rights, including freedom of the media and the right to access information. If all parties involved in the process co-operate, including broadcasters, producers, resellers and consumer associations, the result is a media landscape
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that protects plurality of opinion and freedom of expression. Governments must believe that providing their citizens with pluralistic information can only strengthen their democracies. Well-informed people make well-informed decisions, which are the indispensable foundation that democracies can build upon. We already live in the digital age, a time in which we can create truly democratic cultures with participation by all members of society. This guide aims to offer practical help to those OSCE participating States where the switchover is the challenge of the coming years. [...] The guide is a comprehensive examination of issues to be considered by all stakeholders involved in the switchover process, including the successes and pitfalls encountered." (Foreword, page 3-4)
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"Today, many OSCE participating States are reacting to the availability and dissemination of certain types of (illegal or unwanted) content through the Internet by trying to regulate or control its dissemination. There is particularly major concern about the availability of terrorist propaganda, rac
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ist content, sexually explicit content including child pornography, as well as content defined as hate speech on the Internet. This OSCE-wide Internet content regulation study involves a comprehensive overview of existing international legal provisions and standards relating to media freedom and freedom of expression on the Internet. The study will assess whether and how these are incorporated into national legislation and applied by the OSCE participating States." (Executive summary)
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"The report explores the various legal and policy mechanisms that are crucial for the free flow of information, providing guidance for policy-makers and other relevant users, for the creation of environments conducive to the freedom of expression. As this publication makes clear, freedom of expressi
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on is not just a by-product of technical change: it must be protected by legal and regulatory measures that balance a variety of potentially conflicting values and interests in a complex global ecology of choices. The impetus that this report provides for the prioritization of research in this field encourages further scrutiny of the multifaceted issues that govern the conditions for freedom of expression on the Internet. The findings of this research point to the need to better track a wider array of global legal and regulatory trends." (Preface)
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"This report has looked at six successful intellectual property (IP) reform campaigns from around the world, and examined the strategies, messages and goals of the campaigners who fought them. Although each example has its own lessons to share, broad trends have emerged. Several of the most striking
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campaign successes employed the internet as a mobilising force. A template for such action emerges from examining these campaigns in concert. Almost without exception, campaigners worked in coalition with other stakeholders. These coalitions varied both in style and in substance, and examining those differences is instructive. The campaigns were fought on intellectual and emotional ground which was often some distance from the mechanism of intellectual property law itself. This observation should encourage campaigners to think about the merits and pitfalls of different messaging approaches. Finally, the observation that very few of the case studies emerge from countries in the developing world prompts the report to examine why this might be so, and to challenge campaigners to examine the value of a more global perspective. It’s fair to say that the issues that motivate IP reform activists go beyond the public messages their campaigns focussed upon. The upcoming campaign against the substantive issues contained in the plurilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement offers campaigners an opportunity to find and voice these concerns, concerns that have motivated them thus far to undertake the significant an impressive policy interventions in the global intellectual property space that have been detailed in this report. The time has come to for a mobilising critique against the flawed orthodoxy of tough, unwieldy global intellectual property regimes." (Conclusion, page 47)
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"Partnerships between the public sector, the private sector and particularly civil society in promoting information and communication technology (ICT) policy are a relatively new venture. The mechanisms, management and governance of such partnerships, from loose arrangements to more formal mechanism
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s, are still relatively new and not always fully understood. This guide is an attempt to add to the growing body of knowledge and experience on multi-stakeholder processes and partnerships, based on the practical experiences encountered during the three-year CATIA programme on ICT policy advocacy. It presents guidelines that may assist national ICT policy facilitators in coming to grips with the complexities of multi-stakeholder relationships and the attainment of common goals and objectives. It considers practical issues for the establishment of a multi-stakeholder process for ICT policy and looks at how multi-stakeholder partnerships work, what has been successful and what has not, and offers some practical suggestions on how to make them more effective. Practical experiences from two African countries – the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Kenya – are used to illustrate two possible approaches." (About this guide, page 4)
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"The Information Society is one of the recurrent imaginaries to describe present-day structures, discourses and practices. Within its meaning is enshrined the promise of a better world, sometimes naively assuming a technological deus ex machina, in other cases hoping for the creation of policy tools
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that will overcome a diversity of societal divides. With the two-phased World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the United Nations attempted to stimulate the development of such tools. Simultaneously, the WSIS is a large-scale experiment in multistakeholderism. The objective was to create a more balanced decision-making process that would allow the voices of civil society and business actors to be heard in international politics. This book aims to evaluate the potentialities of both the Information Society, and the WSIS in supporting and constructing more democratic, just and developed societies." (Back cover)
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"Internet Governance is not a simple subject. Although it deals with a major symbol of the DIGITAL world, it cannot be handled with a digital - binary logic of true/false and good/bad. Instead, the subject’s many subtleties and shades of meaning and perception require an ANALOG approach, covering
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a continuum of options and compromises. Therefore, this booklet will not attempt to provide definitive statements on Internet Governance issues. Rather, its aim is to propose a practical framework for the analysis, discussion, and resolution of the key problems in this field." (Introduction, page 5)
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