Paris – Christophe Deloire, Chair of the Forum on Information and Democracy, urged the Council of Europe Ministers’ Deputies at their meeting on 14 February 2024 held under the Presidency of Liechtenstein to safeguard the democratic information space through taking measures to ensure the right to access reliable information.
As technologies of the attention economy continue to evolve the way we create, consume and disseminate information create new stresses on our democracies, we see information manipulation used to influence and shift public opinion in times of war and conflict, elections and during periods of heightened social tensions. Therefore, Christophe Deloire, also serving as General Secretary of Reporters without Borders (RSF), has called upon the Council of Europe to elaborate an international binding Convention on the right to access reliable information.
Democracies must enshrine this right. The International Partnership for Information and Democracy, a non-binding intergovernmental non-binding agreement with 52 state signatories including 38 Council of Europe states, regards information as reliable information “insofar as its collection, processing and dissemination are free and independent, based on cross-checking of various sources, in a pluralistic media landscape where the facts can give rise to a diversity of interpretation and viewpoints.”
In the age of technological developments and foreign interference, the right to information is no longer sufficient in itself to protect our democratic processes but must be complemented by efforts to ensure reliable information. Citizens need to be empowered to recognise reliable information, activities aimed at polluting the information space must be countered and trustworthy information amplified.
“Democratic countries must join efforts to defend democracy and our global information space. The International Partnership for Information and Democracy can be the basis to elaborate a Convention on the right to access reliable information” explained Christophe Deloire, Chair of the Forum on Information and Democracy, during the Committee of Ministers meeting. “By leveraging this existing Partnership, the democratic world has already taken initial steps to realise this evolution of our human rights. We must build upon this effort.”
The Partnership and its implementation body, the Forum on Information and Democracy, can set the normative grounds, facilitate exchange among democratic States, ensure the voice and agency of civic actors around the world and provide a periodic evaluation of the evolution of the right to information. The Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI), a co-regulatory framework, provides a normative benchmark to implement the right to access reliable information.
