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The role of digital access providers 2017, para. 27
- Paragraph text
- Zero rating arrangements may provide users with limited Internet access in areas that would otherwise completely lack access. However, broader Internet access may still remain out of reach for users, trapping them in permanently walled online gardens. The assumption that limited access will eventually ripen into full connectivity requires further study. It may be dependent upon factors such as user behaviour, market conditions, the human rights landscape and the regulatory environment.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The implications of States’ surveillance of communications on the exercise of the human rights to privacy and to freedom of opinion and expression 2013, para. 97
- Paragraph text
- States must take measures to prevent the commercialization of surveillance technologies, paying particular attention to research, development, trade, export and use of these technologies considering their ability to facilitate systematic human rights violations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Freedom of expression, States and the private sector in the digital age 2016, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- It is important to note that surveillance is affected by other demands on privately held information. For example, the inability of the mutual legal assistance treaty regime to keep pace with cross-border data demands may drive States to resort to invasive extraterritorial surveillance measures. Laws that require companies to retain customer data or store such data in local data centres may also encourage such surveillance.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Protection of journalists and media freedom 2012, para. 51
- Paragraph text
- Attacks against journalists may be perpetrated by a range of actors - State or non-State - such as organized crime groups, terrorist groups, security forces or militia. Journalists are placed at risk of attack for documenting and disseminating information deemed to be "inconvenient," including on human rights violations, environmental issues, corruption, organized crime, drug trafficking, public crises, emergencies or public demonstrations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Activists
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to information in international organizations 2017, para. 34
- Paragraph text
- Two categories of information deserve specific mention so as to clarify exactly how access to information advances the public’s right to participation. First, while most organizations seek to exclude “internal documents”, they should in fact be providing access to all information that enables the public to understand the bases for decisions. The Aarhus Convention, for instance, defines “environmental information” as including “cost-benefit and other economic analyses and assumptions used in environmental decision-making”. Organizations should include the “analyses and assumptions” that underlie their decisions within the definition of information that may be disclosed, including not just economic but also legal, political, institutional, operational and similar kinds of analyses and assumptions. Most intergovernmental organizations are not in favour of such disclosures, but non-disclosure of important process documentation hinders public understanding of their work. At the very least, it should be presumed that such information is subject to disclosure.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to information in international organizations 2017, para. 14
- Paragraph text
- In parallel with the work of the Human Rights Committee and its special procedures mechanisms, the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly also articulated the importance of freedom of information. As recently as 2016, the Council called upon all States to ensure disclosure of information held by public authorities and “to adopt transparent, clear and expedient laws and policies that provide for the effective disclosure of information held by public authorities and a general right to request and receive information, for which public access should be granted, except within narrow, proportionate, necessary and clearly defined limitations”. Access to information has become a standard element of other human rights treaties (A/70/361, para. 6), and has been widely adopted in international agreements pertaining to development, the environment, food and agriculture and corruption, among other substantive areas. The Aarhus Convention provides an example of international agreement that access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters, an area of major public interest, “contribute[s] to the protection of the right of every person of present and future generations to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and well-being”. Similarly, in recognition of the essential role played by the right to freedom of information, Sustainable Development Goal 16 links access to information to good governance, human rights and accountability and calls on all Member States to adopt and implement public access to information laws and policies (resolution 70/1, paras. 16.6-16.10).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to information in international organizations 2017, para. 8
- Paragraph text
- And yet, despite the fact that intergovernmental organizations make much of the public work of their institutions available online, including legal instruments, resolutions, decisions of committees and monitoring bodies, field work and webcasts of public meetings, few organizations have access-to-information policies that enable the public, either on an individual basis or through the work of journalists and researchers, to make requests for information not otherwise disclosed. Organizations that do include such policies, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Bank, the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and a handful of others — mostly international financial institutions and funds — are discussed in section III below. Even if they entertain such requests, most organizations make little or no effort to publicize their willingness or to highlight the standards by which decisions to disclose information are made.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The implications of States’ surveillance of communications on the exercise of the human rights to privacy and to freedom of opinion and expression 2013, para. 83c
- Paragraph text
- [Legal frameworks must ensure that communications surveillance measures:] Adhere to the principle of proportionality, and are not employed when less invasive techniques are available or have not yet been exhausted.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Contemporary challenges to freedom of expression 2016, para. 46
- Paragraph text
- The right to freedom of opinion and expression must be respected "without distinction of any kind" (see article 2 (1) of the Covenant). Members of some groups, however, often face particular discrimination when it comes to the implementation of restrictions on expression. The Special Rapporteurs on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, on the situation of human rights defenders and on the independence of judges and lawyers address issues pertaining to human rights defenders and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), often in collaboration with the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. Given their focus and detailed reporting, I will not highlight here our shared concerns about restrictions imposed against NGOs, human rights defenders environmental activists, refugees and lawyers. Instead I will highlight several other groups whose expression is particularly subject to repression.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Civil & Political Rights
- Environment
- Person(s) affected
- Activists
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The protection of sources and whistle-blowers 2015, para. 63
- Paragraph text
- State law should protect any person who discloses information that he or she reasonably believes, at the time of disclosure, to be true and to constitute a threat or harm to a specified public interest, such as a violation of national or international law, abuse of authority, waste, fraud or harm to the environment, public health or public safety. Upon disclosure, authorities should investigate and redress the alleged wrongdoing without any exception based on the presumed motivations or "good faith" of the person who disclosed the information.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The protection of sources and whistle-blowers 2015, para. 59
- Paragraph text
- Basic protections are critical to an effective right to freedom of expression, accountability and democratic governance. Individual cases of disproportionate treatment and retaliation against sources and whistle-blowers have been in the public eye over recent years, relating to intelligence agencies, asylum programmes, public health, environmental protection, corruption in the business and financial sectors, international organizations and many other domains. The Special Rapporteur has avoided mentioning specific cases in the present report. Moving forward, the principles identified in the present report will be applied in communications with Governments and international organizations on specific cases. The Special Rapporteur looks forward to a dialogue with Governments to help to improve their legal frameworks and establish effective protection of sources and whistle-blowers.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The protection of sources and whistle-blowers 2015, para. 28
- Paragraph text
- International authorities and national jurisdictions adopt a variety of definitions of whistle-blowing. In the present report, the Special Rapporteur adopts a broad definition in order to account for relevant purposes of whistle-blowing, in particular the right to know, accountability and democratic governance. For the purposes of the present report, a whistle-blower is a person who exposes information that he or she reasonably believes, at the time of disclosure, to be true and to constitute a threat or harm to a specified public interest, such as a violation of national or international law, abuse of authority, waste, fraud, or harm to the environment, public health or public safety.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The protection of sources and whistle-blowers 2015, para. 10
- Paragraph text
- Second, under the well-accepted proportionality element of the necessity test, disclosure must be shown to impose a specific risk of harm to a legitimate State interest that outweighs the public's interest in the information to be disclosed. If a disclosure does not harm a legitimate State interest, there is no basis for its suppression or withholding (see general comment No. 34 of the Human Rights Committee, para. 30). Some matters should be considered presumptively in the public interest, such as criminal offences and human rights or international humanitarian law violations, corruption, public safety and environmental harm and abuse of public office. The importance of the public's interest has been emphasized repeatedly in other regional mechanisms. National laws relating to the right to information also commonly provide for a public interest analysis.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to access information 2013, para. 107
- Paragraph text
- Government officials who release confidential information concerning violations of the law, wrongdoing by public bodies, grave cases of corruption, a serious threat to health, safety or the environment, or a violation of human rights or humanitarian law (i.e. whistle-blowers) should, if they act in good faith, be protected against legal, administrative or employment-related sanctions. Other individuals, including journalists, other media personnel and civil society representatives, who receive, possess or disseminate classified information because they believe that it is in the public interest, should not be subject to liability unless they place persons in an imminent situation of serious harm.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Humanitarian
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Protection of journalists and press freedom 2010, para. 79
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur is alarmed and concerned that the number of journalists and media personnel killed in 2009 was the highest since 1992, and that 81 per cent of those killings were deliberate and targeted. While the risk of armed conflict increases the risk to the lives of journalists and other media professionals, more journalists were killed in non-conflict situations, mostly for reporting on organized crime or drug trafficking, environmental matters or human rights violations and corruption, or for voicing criticism of Government or the powerful.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Humanitarian
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Activists
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
15 shown of 15 entities