Access to information in international organizations 2017, para. 33

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Paragraph text: Like Governments, intergovernmental organizations should establish an explicit and comprehensive legal framework that recognizes a right to information applicable throughout the entire organization and its subsidiary organs. Any access policy should, explicitly or implicitly, promote disclosure of information in the public interest — that is, information to which the public has a right of access because of the benefit it would provide to understanding of the work of the organization. Information should be defined broadly to include all records, documents, data, analyses, opinions and processes, regardless of the media in which it is held, in keeping with the principle that individuals have a right to information and ideas of all kinds, subject only to narrow non-disclosure rules. The policy should be uniform across the organization, and should be written in plain language. It should also be binding, precluding the organization from withholding information on any basis found outside the policy itself. For instance, WFP generally recognizes a wide range of categories of information, capturing all sorts of media, and emphasizes the policy as a “directive” to be carried out by senior management.

Body: Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression

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