The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will contract to an individual or organization to review international and regional declarations, normative frameworks and accountability measures related to Internet governance principles as part of its comprehensive study on Internet-related issues.
The research timeframe which is from September 2014 to March 2015 will have the first draft submitted to UNESCO by November 30, 2014, and the final draft delivered by March 30, 2015.
The UNESCO study on “Internet governance principles: Declarations, normative frameworks and accountability measures” will provide a comprehensive review of key initiatives on Internet governance principles which have been developed by various stakeholders, and analyze the extent to which various declarations have been used as normative instruments. It will also examine the compatibility of existing documents with respect to UNESCO’s mandate, offer an online resource with open access to documents and data, and inform options for future UNESCO actions.
The research would address the following key questions: What international and regional normative documents related to access to information, freedom of expression, privacy and ethical dimensions of the information society have been developed? What networks and observatories exist to identify developments regarding Internet governance? How does UNESCO’s draft concept of Internet universality fit into existing documents? Is there a gap that needs to be filled to cover the areas under UNESCO’s mandate?
The study will be made available in English in the first instance and be further translated if resources are available. It will be published under Creative Commons license and made available in pdf and epub formats.
