“The Intersection of Open ICT Standards, Development and Public Policy”

The purpose of this session  was to provide an update on recent global discussions on the intersection of open ICT standards, development needs, and public policy. It was a follow up to similar discussions that were held last year in Athens. Many of the participants were concerned with the political implications of ICT standards, as well as the role that intellectual property rights play in limiting access.

The panelists were:

Richard Owens: Director of the Copyright E-Commerce, Technology and Management Division at the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. (http://www.wipo.int/portal/index.html.en)

Laura DeNardis: Resident Fellow at Yale Law School in the Information Society Project. Her research addresses the political and legal implications of information and communication technologies with a concentration in Internet technical standardization, information security, digital media interoperability, and Internet governance. (http://isp.law.yale.edu/)

Georg Greve: trained physicist and software developer with more than 20 years experience. He helped to initiate and found the Free Software Foundation Europe in 2001 and has been working as its president ever since. (http://www.fsfeurope.org/)

Robin D. Gross: founder and Executive Director of IP Justice an international civil liberties organization that promotes balanced intellectual property law and protects freedom of expression. (www.ipjustice.org)

 Rishab Ghosh: Economist and managing editor of First Monday, a peer-reviewed journal covering Internet economics, law and technology. (http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/)

DeNardis discussed standards as politics by other means, as they affect how citizens participate.  There was some discussion of “ACTA” which stands for Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. According to an Office of the US Trade Representative press release (http://www.ustr.gov/Document_Library/Press_Releases/2007/October/Ambassador_Schwab_Announces_US_Will_Seek_New_Trade_Agreement_to_Fight_Fakes.html) there is a focus on health and safety. However, Grosse said that these agreements are really designed to enrich transnational corporations; not local communities which is where the focus needs to be. She went on to say that politicians need to pay greater attention to the process of standardization and the transparency of that process. Furthermore Grosse argued that although counterfeiting can be an Intellectual property crime, it can be debated whether it truly is a health and safety issue.   Cynthia D. Waddell’s main focus is human rights in relation to people with disabilities.  She was pushing for compliance to standards surrounding those with disabilities. In 1999 Waddell published “The Growing Digital Divide in Access for People With Disabilities: Overcoming Barriers to Participation in the Digital Economy” which was commissioned by the Clinton Administration (http://www.icdri.org/CynthiaW/the_digital_divide.htm).  

Some links of interest… 

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2318/125/ 

 http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2301/276/ 

http://www.icdri.org/CynthiaW/UN_06_16_2003.htm 

http://www.wipo.int/portal/index.html.en http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/iprm/index.html

Questions that arose from this session:

1) Who’s setting the standards and what is the political legitimacy of that?

2) What is the impact of not being at the table?

~ by cassondra on November 28, 2007.