The Digital Divide and Human Rights

As a fundamental part of societal discourse, we must question how the international community has reacted to technology. Will technology simply become yet another economic mechanism for transferring capital from poor to wealthy? Or does it have a liberating potential at a very human level?

This article argues that the accessibility of information technologies is indeed a human right, rooted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Politic Rights (ICCPR). Furthermore, the next meeting of the World Summit on an Information Society, in 2005 in Tunis, presents an excellent opportunity for the European Union, comprising some of the world’s most developed countries and the greatest source of aid, to integrate technological initiatives into its policies of poverty eradication and sustainable development.