Danish conference on on-line freedom of expression

On 2 September the Danish network on the World Summit on the Information
Society hosted a conference on Freedom of Expression in the Information
Society. The conference addressed global tendencies of regulation of
freedom of expression, the new Council of Europe Declaration on Freedom of
Communication on the Internet, intellectual property rights, (traditional)
media, access to information and the role of libraries.
A number of concerns was raised, both in relation to the WSIS process as
such, and in relation to the topics discussed. For instance the general
tendency of amputating internationally recognised freedom of expression
principles in the WSIS docs, the legislative tendencies post 9-11 and how
to preserve individual privacy and freedom, the future role of libraries
in providing free information access and local capacity-building, the fear
of diversity as the underlying current for censorship, the ambiguity
between the principle of limited liability for ISPs and the principle of
self-regulation, and not least the balance between intellectual property
rights and access to information, which is one of the most controversial
topics in the global development of the Information society.

A conference report with resumes of workshop discussions and plenary
speeches will be available shortly. As a follow-up to the conference, The
Danish Institute for Human Right is drafting concrete suggestions for the
WSIS Declaration of Principles and Action Plan to feed into the upcoming
Prepcom3 meeting in Geneva (15-16 September).

Conference information
http://www.una.dk/wsis

(Contribution by Rikke Frank Joergensen, Digital Rights Denmark)