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Ethical Dimensions
The Tunis texts would have been clearly stronger if the aspects of information society being people-centred, human rights-based and sustainable development-oriented were seen as critical ethical dimensions embodied in human relationships and community building and equally as bodies of international agreements. These ethical dimensions are foundational to a just, equitable and sustainable information and knowledge society.
Geneva lifted the ethical values of respect for peace and the fundamental values of freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, shared responsibility, and respect for nature as enunciated in the Millennium Declaration. Tunis should have improved on these by including the principles of trust, stewardship and shared responsibility together with digital solidarity. The technologies we develop, and the solidarities we forge, must build relationships and strengthen social cohesion
Human rights conventions, for example, are critically important in evaluating ICTs so that they are tools to enable just and peaceable conditions for humanity. But Tunis failed to point to this direction. It did not, for example, restate what Geneva considered acts inimical to the information society such as racism, intolerance, hatred, violence and others.
The strong emphasis on technology in the Tunis texts must not eclipse the human being as the subject of communication and development. Our humanity rests in our capacity to communicate with each other and create community. It is in the respectful dialogue and sharing of values among peoples, in the plurality of their cultures and civilizations, that meaningful and accountable communication thrives. The Tunis texts did not give clear indications on how this can happen.
In an age of economic globalization and commodification of knowledge, the ethics and values of justice, equity, participation and sustainability are imperative. Beyond Tunis, all stakeholders must be encouraged to weave ethics and values language in working on semantic web knowledge structures. Communication rights and justice are about making human communities as the home of technology and human relationships as technology’s heart.
The Rev. Liberato Bautista of the United Methodist delegation was one of the leaders in drafting the above “Ethical Dimensions” which is the contribution of the Values and Ethics Caucus of civil society participants in the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis.
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