The Global Digital Justice Forum, led by a digital justice vision, is a multisectoral group of development organizations, digital rights networks, trade unions, feminist groups, corporate watchdogs, and communication rights campaigners [including, Campaign of Campaigns, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), Equidad, ETC Group, Global Policy Forum, Groupe de Recherche Pour Une Stratégie Économique Alternative (GRESEA), IT for Change, Just Net Coalition, Latin American Information Agency (ALAI), Oxfam International, Public Services International (PSI), Social Watch, The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), Third World Network, Transnational Institute (TNI).
This submission has been co-constructed by the group through the past several months of dialogue, deliberation, and consultation with several communities in the Global South. It has also been circulated among partners and collaborators of the Forum’s members, and validated by Asociación Latinoamericana de Educación y Comunicación Popular (ALER), Foro Argentino de Radios Comunitarias (FARCO), Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR), Internet Bolivia, Internet Ciudadana, and Pressenza.
The members of the Global Digital Justice Forum consider the UN Global Digital Compact (GDC) as an important milestone that could become “an opportunity for Governments and other stakeholders to revitalize international cooperation in the light of the dramatic changes that have taken place in digital technology since WSIS” (Para 98, A 78/62-E/2023/49).
The group believes that for this opportunity to materialize, the GDC must unequivocally reject the ‘equal footing’ multistakeholder model that has dominated digital cooperation processes, leading to an entrenchment of corporate power. Instead, it must build on WSIS outcomes, which still remain valid. The GDC must set up a new democratic global digital governance framework founded in a human rights-based constitutionalism that acknowledges the legitimate role of governments in digital policymaking.
The Forum sees a strong and central role for civil society and social movements in global-to-local digital policymaking. It believes that there is no digital cooperation without the participation of people in agenda-setting for an equitable, inclusive, and development-oriented digital society. The standpoints of those at the margins of society must inform processes towards the GDC. The multilateral system and governments need to use the creative potential of the Internet to ensure that such participation is not just notional, but as democratized and meaningful as possible, so that policies are agile, accountable, and attentive to people and the planet. The so-called digital divide is fundamentally a development divide. The commitments of the international community in delivering the 2030 Agenda should not be derailed or undermined by or be dependent on digitalization. Rather, the GDC must strive to ensure that digitalization is a positive force for the right of all to live well, with dignity.
Read the complete submission made by the Forum here. Read the Spanish version of our submission here, diligently translated by Internet Ciudadana.
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