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November 16, 2003

So which comes first? Human rights, or freedom of information? It doesn't look like WSIS will give you both. As China resists any reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the WSIS declaration, Worldsummit2003.org reports that the EU's insistence on this leaves it able to "blame the failure of the summit on China".

But the ideals that power the information society lend themselves inherently to the provision of human rights, don't they? A statement distributed by the Human Rights caucus at last week's talks recognizes that human rights and freedom of information are "intimately related and hold the potential of enhancing each other". But is any country more or less likely to respect human rights if it makes it into the WSIS declaration? Of course not - so why can't we remember what we're here for?

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