OSCE RFoM Sessions at World Press Freedom Day 2023
When
Where
Organized by
On World Press Freedom Day 2023, UNESCO will organize a special anniversary event at UN headquarters in New York, marking the 30 years since the UN General Assembly’s decision proclaiming an international day for press freedom. On this occasion, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media will organise the following side events during the anniversary edition of World Press Freedom Day at the UN Headquarters and the Vance Center at New York Bar Association.
Side event 1
Freedom of Expression and Gender Justice
Joint side event with UN Women, UNFPA and the Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
1st May 2023, 16:30 - 18.00 EDT
UNFPA (605 Third Avenue New York)
Registration: https://s.apc.org/HBPtS0
At this event, the four international freedom of expression mandate holders from the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the African Commission of Human Rights, and the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights will discuss the multi-stakeholder recommendations of the 2022 Joint Declaration on Freedom of Expression and Gender Justice in conjunction with the Agreed Conclusions of the sixty-seventh session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The CSW took place in March 2023 and focused on innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. The event will explore synergies to move forward in promoting the conclusions’ implementation towards gender justice.
Side Event 2
The role of media freedom for attaining and sustaining democracies
(co-organised by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, the OAS Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information)
3rd May, 09.30-11.00 EDT
Vance Center, New York Bar Association (42 West 44th Street New York)
The four international freedom of expression mandate holders from the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the African Commission of Human Rights, and the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights will come together to present their 2023 Joint Declaration on Media Freedom and Democracy.
The event will provide an opportunity to explore and deliberate the role of the media in democracy as provider of quality information, as public watchdog, and supporter of democratic processes and human rights. In particular, the session aims at outlining ways to enable the media to play their role in democratic societies and the steps states and other actors, including online platforms, need to take to ensure genuine and functional freedom of the media.
For further information, please visit the concept note below.
This side event is open for everyone to participate. Registration is not required, but would help us determine the approximate number of participants. If you intend to join, please kindly send a short email to AIFreeSpeech@osce.org.
Side Event 3
How to build a healthier online information ecosystem to ensure access to public interest information
(co-organised by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media and UNESCO)
3 May, 11.30-13.00 EDT
Vance Center, New York Bar Association (42 West 44th Street New York)
As digital platforms continue to transform and drastically change the media and information consumption as we know it, this session will explore ways forward in promoting a healthier online information space, one that ensures citizen’s access to public information, to enable democratic debate peace and security.
The session will not only discuss how to address societal harms brought by online content governance systems, but will particularly focus on ways to harness digital technologies for fulfilling the media’s democratic role and promoting human rights online.
The session will also discuss latest policy and regulatory developments aimed at regulating the impact of AI on freedom of expression and other human rights, which creates a momentum to call for a healthier digital public sphere. With this in mind, UNESCO has engaged in a series of consultations to develop global Guidelines on the structures and processes needed to ensure users have a safer and more critical interaction with online content, to simultaneously support freedom of expression and the availability of accurate and reliable information in the public sphere, and the OSCE RFoM has developed a Policy Manual to give guidance to States on developing human-rights centred regulation for online content governance.
For further information, please visit the concept note below.
This side event is open for everyone to participate. Registration is not required, but would help us determine the approximate number of participants. If you intend to join, please kindly send a short email to AIFreeSpeech@osce.org.
Side event 4
Can there be Security without Media Freedom?
(organised by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, in partnership with North Macedonia as the 2023 OSCE Chairpersonship in Office and Albania as elected Member of the UN Security Council)
3 May, 13.30-14.30 EDT
United Nations Headquarters (405 East 42nd Street, New York)
This side event aims to shed light on the interconnected nature of the growing challenges to media freedom and their impact on peace and security. Aside from being a crucial pillar for safe societies, free speech becomes weaponized to create an information chaos that undermines peace and security. This duality was the starting point for discussions with an Advisory Group of Eminent Experts on Freedom of the Media (AGEEFOM), and led to the RFoM publication – Can there be Security without Media Freedom?
This side event will provide an opportunity to discuss key findings of this report with members of the expert group. The discussion is closely linked to the main topic of this year’s World Press Freedom Day “Shaping a Future of Rights – Freedom of expression as a driver for all other human rights” and aims to highlight how media freedom contributes to security and to the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
For further information, please visit the concept note below.
This side event is targeted at UN Delegations, everyone with access to the UN building is welcome to join.