Dynamic Coalition on the Framework of Principles for the Internet

Report about the Developments and Activities of the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition in 2008/2009





The Internet Rights and Principles (IRP) coalition has had a productive year and is happy to report substantial progress in defining its approach for advocacy of a human rights based internet governance regime and good practices regarding rights and principles on the Internet.



As during the last year the IRP held a continuous discussion on its main mailing-list. Furthermore monthly audio-conferences were held to discuss the current state, and to plan next steps. In 2009 we also successfully launched a Facebook community to facilitate outreach and mainstreaming our cause. The Facebook community features current news and we we are happy to see its membership grow to more than 300 members.



Like last year the coalition would like to ask the IGF community to consider giving more communication and collaboration infrastructure support to the coalitions in order to make our work more dynamic.



Four aspects of the coalition's work since the 2008 IGF are particularly noteworthy:

1. Following the constructive deliberations during the IGF 08 in Hyderabad, the Internet Bill of Rights coalition and the Framework of Principles for the Internet coalition agreed to merge, because of their shared aims and in order to consolidate their efforts. The new coalition was agreed to hold the name: "Coalition for Internet Rights and Principles". And members of the leadership of both former coalitions are now serving in the Steering Committee of the IRP coalition.
2. Two projects have been initiated to define the approach of the new coalition. The report "Values, principles and rights in internet governance" situates the IRP approach within the global debate on universal values and a pluralistic culture necessary to realize the potential of the internet for education, participatory politics, and economic empowerment of the individual citizen.
   
   On the other IRP teamed up with the Association for Progressive Communications in their effort to review and update the Internet Rights Charter. This project is still in progress, but         it is foreseeable that the result will be a potent policy advocacy instrument, which can be         used to promote rights and principles in local, regional and international ICT policy                     development processes.
3. In 2009 IRP will hold one workshop (on the 13th of September) as a side event of the European Dialog on Internet Governance (EuroDIG). In this workshop participants and prospective participants are invited to discuss and develop the two core documents (s.a.) further. 
4. An initiative towards a "Registrants Rights Charter", that resulted from a workshop, which was co-organized and conducted by several IRP participants, at the ICANN AtLarge summit (Mexico), managed to advocate and have the development of such a charter entered into ICANNs official administrative plan.
   
   

Furthermore, since the 2008 IGF the coalition has won new active participants from several institutions including UNESCO, Council of Europe, French and Swiss Government, as well as a steering committee member from Google.



We are looking forward to a productive IGF 2009, where we plan to hold a coalition meeting, as well as to be active collaborators in several workshops.