The European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights introduces two important new principles not contained in the European Convention on Human Rights:

1) It does not just stress ‘individual rights’, but begins to define social rights based on the fundamental European value of solidarity.

2) It sees the defence of rights as an ongoing process by proclaiming the need to protect fundamental rights "in the light of changes in society, social progress and scientific and technological developments".

Internet Rights Europe bases itself firmly on both of these principles and wants to build on the present Charter in an important area of rapid technological development requiring continuous input on human rights issues – information and communication technologies, and specifically, the Internet.

Internet Rights Europe emerges from the experience of the European Internet Rights Initiative of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). This initiative began in 1999 and involved bringing together a coalition of socially responsible ISPs, social NGOs, civil liberties advocates and legal and technical experts to work together in defending and extending human rights in relation to the Internet. We now feel it is time to consolidate and broaden that coalition into an organisational platform.

Internet Rights Europe strongly supports the work of such bodies as the Platform of Social NGOs and the European Trade Union Confederation in seeking to expand and strengthen the references to social rights in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and to make the Charter legally binding. We believe social NGOs must play a vital role in the building of a democratic Europe.

APC has unique world-wide experience in how the Internet can be used to strengthen the work of social NGOs. Since 1992 it has been the primary telecommunications provider for social NGOs during the preparatory process and on-site for all of the UN World Conferences. In 1995, it was awarded consultative status to the Economic and Social Council of the UN. It is now actively engaged in several forums and processes focussing on Civil Society and the Information Society including the World Social Forum, preparations for the World Summit on the Information Society, the ITU gender Task force and UN ICT Task force.

We believe the Internet’s full capacity for enhancing the work of social NGOs still remains largely untapped and this continues to be a priority in our work. But in addition, we also need to expand our work in another direction. The potential of the Internet for strengthening democracy could be lost before it is fully realised.

In the current debate about Internet regulation there has been widespread and strong lobbying from groups concerned about commercial, censorship and privacy issues and from law enforcement, but very little from groups using the Internet for democratic and social campaigning purposes.

By combining APC’s expertise in democratic and social use of the Internet with that of a range of authoritative legal and technical experts, we aim to create an organisational platform that can provide knowledgeable input into European debate on Information Society and Internet related issues.

Martine Paulet, Secretary, Internet Rights Europe info@internetrights.info)

* Internet related issues are outlined more comprehensively in the Internet Rights Charter. http://rights.apc.org/charter.html