SOURCE: ARTICLE 19 is the Global Campaign for Free Expression. This newsletter provides brief descriptions of the activities carried out by ARTICLE 19 between March and April 2003. If you would like more information about any of the stories, please contact the relevant ARTICLE 19 Programme Officer (see the Regional Programme Updates below), write to [email protected], or use the link above to access the ARTICLE 19 web-site (www.article19.org).

GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

For some time now, ARTICLE 19 has been promoting broader notions of the right to access information and looking at the obligations of global governance actors, particularly the international financial and trade institutions (IFTIs), as well as transnational corporations. Our work on these issues has moved forward significantly over the past few months.

An international meeting in Georgia, USA, on promoting openness within the IFTIs was profiled in our last Newsletter. Implementation of the agreed plan of action from this meeting is moving forward well. Based on our previous work in this area, ARTICLE 19 has agreed to lead in the drafting of a Charter, setting out the standards to which the disclosure policies of the IFTIs should conform. This will form a centrepiece of the campaign, mobilising a wide range of actors from many different countries around a coherent set of common objectives.

A second strand emerging from the Georgia meeting was to develop a network of national organisations working on freedom of information and to foster a co-ordinated campaign to work together to promote greater openness within the IFTIs. A pilot project involving around 10 different countries from all regions of the world has been initiated, with co-ordinated requests for key documents from the World Bank, World Trade Organisation (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the regional development banks. The campaign will build on this pilot work, incorporating more national groups and expanding the scope of advocacy work directed at the IFTIs.

A third agreement from the Georgia meeting was to target the disclosure review processes currently underway at both the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and European Investment Bank (EIB), and the upcoming disclosure review process at the Asian Development Bank (ADB). ARTICLE 19 drafted a letter on the IDB’s draft policy, focusing on three key issues, the system of exceptions, the need for better process guarantees and the lack of an independent review mechanism. The letter was signed by 26 leading freedom of information and bank-focused organisations and is available on our website at: Text of IDB Submission. We also contributed to, and signed, a letter to the ADB urging them to ensure appropriate opportunities for consultation in their upcoming review.

In recent months ARTICLE 19 has also been examining how to promote access to information provisions for companies - particularly those companies whose policies have a considerable effect on public life. The International Council on Human Rights Policy, referring to ARTICLE 19’s publication The Public’s Right to Know, has already argued that, according to international law, companies are already obliged to disclose information in areas where they fulfil public functions, or when public interests are involved.

ARTICLE 19 plans to investigate corporate policies on openness and will examine the various voluntary guidelines transnational corporations are following. We plan to develop our principles on access to information in this new area and undertake an ‘audit’ of several companies transparency policies, to see how far they comply with this standard.