ICT & Human Rights

Abstract

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)—Internet, web, and social media—are fast becoming a comprehensive repository and soon an archive of (most) human knowledge. With access to ICT, an individual can become informed on everything from healthcare issues to civic problems to legal concerns. One hundred years ago, people were discussing the need for basic literacy and its impact on the human condition. Today, we should be discussing digital literacy and access in the same way. Digital literacy can be seen as a basic human right. Individuals can impact society, react, and reach out with the aid of technology. ICT is a powerful tool for encouraging, teaching, and protecting human rights.
This panel is dedicated to discussing how ICT can be used to advance human rights around the world. Please share your ideas, contribute to our discussions, point out relevant news and information. We are hoping to cover a very broad area of ICT's impact on human rights, including but not limited to:
1. ICT & Education;
2. ICT & Rural Development (e.g., farming);
3. ICT & Politics (how can ICT promote democratic advances around the world?);
4. ICT & Environmental Movement (e.g., information dissemination, education);
5. ICT & Crisis Management;
6. ICT & Economic Development (how can ICT promote a higher standard of living around the world and relieve poverty?);
7. ICT & Health (ICT facilitating the rights to access to medicine, health, quality of life and well-being);
8. ICT & Aging;
9. ICT & Child Well-being, including child trafficking and prostitution;
10. ICT & the Law.

Full text

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Dr. Olga Werby, Chair

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ICT & Education
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Education is the most powerful weapon
which you can use to change the world.
—Nelson Mandela

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Assumptions about the need for a transfer of
knowledge for development purposes are central
within the ICT and development discourse and
justify the existence of a category of people known
as the ʻinformation-poorʼ or ʻknowledge-poorʼ.
—Merridy Wilson

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Assuming that people are ʻinformation-poorʼ
because they do not have access to the specific
forms of information that are made available
through ICTs, devalues the information and the
knowledge that these people do have.
—Merridy Wilson

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ICT & Community
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Haiti 2010

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Crisis Mapping

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ICT & Environment
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Education is a human right with immense
power to transform. On its foundation rest
the cornerstones of freedom, democracy
and sustainable human development.
—Kofi Annan

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ICT & Politics
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Obama—Web 2.0 Election
"Barack Obama built the biggest network of
supporters we've seen, using the Internet to
do it," Joe Trippi, an Internet political and
business consultant who pioneered the use
of the Internet in politics.
Through forums and social websites such as MySpace and
Facebook, Obama built relationships with his supporters, and
would-be supporters.
All of his policies were made available online, and updates
were sent to the subscribers of his political party via email
and text message, ultimately making him the most
technology savvy and “hip” candidate to date, thus
increasing his popularity among youth voters.
An unprecedented communication strategy was the "online
call tool”. Over one million calls were made from residential,
personal laptops and desktops.

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The control of information is something the elite
always does, particularly in a despotic form of
government. Information, knowledge, is power. If
you can control information, you can control people.
—Tom Clancy

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iRevolution

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ICT & Health
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The Homogenization of
Cultural Differences of
Symptoms
Hundreds of therapists
descended on on Indonesian
villagers offering PTSD
services after 2004 tsunami.
Dr. Michael Finegan distributes coloring
books to tsunami-affected children in Galle,
Sri Lanka. Photo by CRS Staff
ICT allows individuals to
erroneously conclude that the
best course of action for another
person is based solely on how
they feel about it or how they
would act in the same situation.
Health Providers

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The Homogenization of
Cultural Differences of
Symptoms
ICT allows individuals to adapt the pathology
they’ve found in other cultures, developing the
symptoms they’ve read about on the Web.
Thus Anorexia, which was virtually unknown
in the Eastern cultures before 1980s, is fast
becoming as prevalent as it is in the West.
Patients
“Ten years ago, we saw only one or two anorexics
each year,” says Dr. Sing Lee, a psychiatrist at The
Chinese University of Hong Kong (2007). “Now,
we see one new patient a month. Many are
hospitalized.”

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While health-on-the-web may empower in various
ways those who have access to the internet, the flip
side of this is that those without internet access may
become relatively more disadvantaged in health
matters. For them, the experience may be more one
of disempowerment through inability to take
advantage of new opportunities.
—Europe’s Digital Competitiveness
Report 2010

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sickweather BETA

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ICT & Law
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Ignorance of the law excuses no man...
—John Selden

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Project’s Goals
•Moot the Issues of
Interest to ICC OTP
•Foster Public Debate
Between Parties
•Open Discussion to a
Wold-Wide Audience
•Explore the Complexity
of an Issue
•Provide Visibility for ICC
Office of the Prosecutor’s
Decisions

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Facebook triggered a very quick reaction.
The (United Nations) Security Council
reacted in a few days; the U.N. General
Assembly reacted in a few days. ...
I think Libya is a new world.
—Luis Moreno-Ocampo

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Aequitas sequitur legem.
Equity follows the law.

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To live is to choose. But to choose well,
you must know who you are and what
you stand for, where you want to go and
why you want to get there.
—Kofi Annan

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Life is about learning; when you
stop learning, you die.
—Tom Clancy