Article: “The Right to Information in International Human Rights Law,” by Maeve McDonagh, Professor of Law, University College Cork, Ireland, in Human Rights Law Review.
Abstract: This article explores the conceptual basis for the recognition of a right to information. It commences by reviewing developments in the recognition of a right to information in international human rights law. The role of the right to freedom of expression in furthering the recognition of a right to information is highlighted while the engagement of other rights in such recognition is also explored. The article considers the contribution made by the instrumental approach to the recognition of a right to information in international human rights law. Finally it explores whether there might exist an intrinsic right to information independent of other rights.
Transparency Research: The U.S. Sunlight Foundation announces a research project, backed by Google, to evaluate the impacts of technology-driven transparency policies around the world through case studies. The announcement says in part:
As we begin this research, we offer five starting hypotheses:
- Transparency and open data make it easier for journalists and watchdogs to evaluate government actions. This raises the costs to politicians of bad behavior, improving government’s performance and accountability.
- Transparency and open data empower citizens to make more informed civic participation and voting choices, especially when journalists and other third parties are able to make the data more accessible and understandable and contextualize is for citizens. This allows citizens to more effectively hold lawmakers accountable.
- Transparency and open data help create the conditions for a vibrant community of third-party developers, analysts, and advocates who innovate ways to solve problems ranging from catching the bus to catching fraud. As this community develops around available data, it demands more from government, and as government makes more available, the community widens in turn – a virtuous circle of engagement.
- Government policymaking and policy implementation both benefit from transparency and openness because non-government actors have valuable latent knowledge (from potholes on their street to prior art in patenting, to borrow two common examples) that can make government decision-makers better informed. The easier it is for interested and informed citizens to contribute that latent knowledge through open processes, the more diverse resources government decision-makers will be able to consult. Government data about previous problems and previous policy interventions also creates more informed, and thus more effective, advocates, analysts, and other policy researchers and innovators.
- All of these processes can add up to a more engaged and active citizenry. While trust and legitimacy are difficult concepts to measure, we have a generalized expectation that the more citizens can participate in and monitor processes of government, the more connection they will have to what government does. Rather than treating government as something distant and strange, they will view government as accessible and familiar, which can lead to increased trust.
We also want to note that making transparency policy work isn’t a just-add-water process. In that spirit, we offer some other guiding questions on our minds as we begin this research:
- Are there certain conditions necessary for transparency policies to be effective? (e.g., a vibrant civil society, a free press, a meaningful commitment from government officials, particular development conditions?)
- Which policies are the most effective under different sets of conditions/ constraints?
- And what do we mean by effective? And how would we know it?
- And how long should it take to observe the hoped-for impacts?
These are our initial assumptions and questions. We offer them in the spirit of opening a dialogue. We are far from set in these ideas. We offer them now, in their first-cut state, because we are aiming for a research process that mirrors the best of what open processes have to offer – a chance to draw on the latent knowledge of a larger community beyond ourselves, and a chance to be held accountable to the highest standards of honest research inquiry. We view this fundamentally as a collective enterprise.
Are there other questions we should be asking? Other hypotheses we should be testing? How should we be thinking through these questions? Are we even asking the right questions?
And as we move forward, which cases should we be investigating in detail? If you have a case study you would like to suggest, please e-mail our research fellow coordinating case study selection, Alexander Furnas (or leave a comment at the end of this post). We are looking for examples of national, state, and local transparency experiments, both successes and failures.
We view this as a community-driven research enterprise. We certainly don’t have all the answers, or even all the questions. All we have are a set of working ideas that can only be as good as the ideas that you share with us. Probably the most fundamental of these working ideas is that we are all better off as part of an open and transparent process that brings in the best thinking of a broader community. We hope that each one of you will confirm this hypothesis by being in touch, either by commenting here, or sharing your thoughts by e-mail.
Budget Transparency: The International Budget Project released three case studies on the role of the IBP, its local partners, donors, and governments in pushing for greater budget transparency in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Honduras. The case study on Afghanistan highlights its improved Open Budget Survey score and the efforts of donors, CSOs, and the media in pressuring the government to improve its Public Financial
Russia: On February 11-12, 2013, the Laboratory for Anti-Corruption Policy of the Higher School of Economics, the Transparency International Russia, and the Freedom of Information Foundation held a conference, Legal and Practical Problems of FOI Implementation in Russia. The FIF was represented by Tatyana Tolsteneva, Development Manager, who spoke about new trends for governmental openness, and Daria Sukhikh, Senior Lawyer, who commented actual judicial practice of implementing the FOI law and archive legislation. Their presentations are downloadable from the Russian page.
Russia: “How Federal Executive Government Bodies Place Information at Their Official Websites,” a report by the Freedom of Information Foundation including screen shots of websites. It; concludes: “We have no wish to assure our readers that federal executive government bodies’ official websites have much more flaws than merits. By no means. However, to ignore flaws is the best way to stop any progress. And we are seeking for the opposite.”
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