IGF 2015

The IGF has been a critical platform to facilitate dialogue on human rights and their interlinkages with Internet policy and governance, which has also informed discussions in other policy bodies such as the Human Rights Council. Human rights issues have also been increasingly prominent at the IGF, with a large proportion of workshops speaking to their different dimensions.

This main session on human rights intends to:

1. Surface key questions and facilitate broader discussions on the issue of human rights and the Internet;
2. Surface the linkage between the IGF 2015 thematic area of access with human rights.

The session will be organised as a roundtable, and will focus on three areas of discussion, namely:

• human rights, access and development;
• freedom of expression, right to assembly and privacy; and
• emerging issues.

The roundtable aims to create a space to discuss key issues and questions that emerge from workshop sessions focused on human rights as well as new questions and topics raised in this public consultation. The main areas are organised based on workshop submissions under the thematic area of human rights. The global Internet community has helped to shape this session by suggesting policy questions for each of the areas in the one (1) month prior to the IGF (see the questions attached below).

Discussants from different stakeholder groups will provide substantive inputs to some of the questions (attached below), which will then be opened up to participants for broader conversation. Moderators will introduce the overall framing for the session, and actively engage discussants and participants in the conversation.

Moderators:

Anriette Esterhuysen, Association for Progressive Communications, South Africa
Juan Carlos, Derechos Digitales, Chile
Host country chair: Thiago Tavares

Discussants:

Opening input: Prof Joseph Canatacci, UN Special Rapporteur on Right to Privacy in Digital Age
Rohan Samarajiva, LirneAsia, Sri Lanka (Academia/Civil Society, Invited)
Niels ten Oever, Working Party on ICANN and Human Rights, IRTF
Research Group on Human Rights Protocol Considerations & Article 19,
Netherlands (Civil Society)
Bishakha Datta, Point of View, India (Civil Society)
Ebele Okobi, Facebook, Head of Public Policy Africa, Nigeria/London (Private Sector)
Kathy Brown, ISOC, US (Technical Community)
Frane Maroevic, Director, Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media
Yolanda Martínez, Head of the Digital Government Unit, Ministry of Public Administration of Mexico (Government)
Guilherme Varella, Department of Cultural Policy of the Ministry of Culture, Brazil (Government, Invited)
Olga Cavalli, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Argentina (Government)

Closing/Synthesis: Frank LaRue, Executive Director of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Europe, Guatemala/Italy