On 2 September the Danish network on the World Summit on the Information Society hosted a conference on Freedom of Expression in the Information Society. The conference addressed global tendencies of regulation of freedom of expression, the new Council of Europe Declaration on Freedom of Communication on the Internet, intellectual property rights, (traditional) media, access to information and the role of libraries. A number of concerns was raised, both in relation to the WSIS process as such, and in relation to the topics discussed. For instance the general tendency of amputating internationally recognised freedom of expression principles in the WSIS docs, the legislative tendencies post 9-11 and how to preserve individual privacy and freedom, the future role of libraries in providing free information access and local capacity-building, the fear of diversity as the underlying current for censorship, the ambiguity between the principle of limited liability for ISPs and the principle of self-regulation, and not least the balance between intellectual property rights and access to information, which is one of the most controversial topics in the global development of the Information society.

A conference report with resumes of workshop discussions and plenary speeches will be available shortly. As a follow-up to the conference, The Danish Institute for Human Right is drafting concrete suggestions for the WSIS Declaration of Principles and Action Plan to feed into the upcoming Prepcom3 meeting in Geneva (15-16 September).

Conference information
http://www.una.dk/wsis

(Contribution by Rikke Frank Joergensen, Digital Rights Denmark)