Social, Humanitarian and Cultural - Harvard Model United Nations

Social, Humanitarian 

and Cultural 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Introduction 4 

History of the Committee 5 

Topic A 5 

Topic B 15 

Position Paper Requirements 26 

Closing Remarks 27 

Bibliography 30 

Topic A: 

Topic B: 

International Collaboration in 

Science 

Internet Censorship 

Statement of the Problem 

History of the Problem 

Current Situation 

Past Actions 

Proposed Solutions 

Questions a Resolution Must Answer 

Bloc Positions 

Suggestions for Further Research 

5 

7 

9 

12 

13 

14 

15 

15 




Past Actions 


Questions a Resolution Must Answer 



15 

17 

19 

21 

23 

24 

24 

26 

General Assembly 


1

Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee 

Harvard Model United Nations 2011 

Dear Delegates, 

Alexander N. Barrett 

Secretary-General 

Anusha Tomar 

Director-General 

Kevin Lee 

Under-Secretary-General 

Administration 

Julia S. Howland 


Business 

Stephanie Oviedo 

Comptroller 

Christopher D. Coey 


Substantive Support 

Erfan Soliman 



Jonathan K. Yip 


Economic and Social Council 

Hunter M. Richard 


Specialized Agencies 

It is an honor and a privilege to welcome you to the fifty-seventh session of the Harvard 

Model United Nations General Assembly! The General Assembly has occupied a unique 

place in history since its founding, as the only forum in which all nations in the world can 

come together and receive equal representation. It serves as an opportunity for nations 

to discuss questions and crises of the utmost international importance on equal footing. 

The topics that the General Assembly debates reflect the full breadth of issues of concern 

across the globe. Our organ is the most diverse of any United Nations body, and, as such, 

has responsibility beyond what may initially be evident. 

HMUN’s simulation of the General Assembly will be an experience of a lifetime for you 

in many ways. As delegates, you will practice firsthand the foundation of international 

diplomacy and debate, and hone skills that will be vital for years to come, such as the 

ability to compromise, negotiate, and effectively present your ideas in a manner dedicated 

to achieving a solution. As students, you will explore the nuances of some of the most 

complex issues of our day, and look beyond them to devise possible solutions and produce 

resolutions that, in some instances, may contain ideas that are even more effective than 

those presented in the real United Nations. Finally, as global citizens, you will broaden your 

horizons by adopting an international perspective, exchanging ideas, and forging friendships 

with students from across the country and across the world. 

As John F. Kennedy Jr. once said, “One person can change the world, and every person 

should try.” I commend you on embodying this attitude and taking a step toward being such 

a person by choosing to engage with your peers and to discuss problems that have immense 

ramifications. To be able to reap the full benefits of this experience, you should begin 

with this guide and then conduct your own individual research. A successful committee 

experience is dependent in large part on your willingness and readiness to participate. Our 

directors are some of the best that HMUN has ever seen, and I encourage all of you to take 

advantage of their expertise and get to know them both before and during conference. Best 

of luck in your preparations for HMUN, and please do not hesitate to contact me via email 

with any questions or concerns you may have before then. Enjoy the fall and I look forward 

to meeting you in January! 

Sincerely, 

Erfan Soliman 

59 Shepard Street, Box 205 

Cambridge, MA 02138 

Voice: (617)-398-0772 

Fax: (617) 496-4472 

Email: info@harvardmun.org 

www.harvardmun.org 

Erfan Soliman 

Under-Secretary-General for the General Assembly 


274 Kirkland Mail Center 

Cambridge MA, 02138 

soliman@harvardmun.org 

2 

Specialized General Assembly Agencies



Dear Delegates, 

Alexander N. Barrett 

Secretary-General 

Anusha Tomar 

Director-General 

Kevin Lee 


Administration 

Julia S. Howland 


Business 

Stephanie Oviedo 

Comptroller 

Christopher D. Coey 


Substantive Support 

Erfan Soliman 



Jonathan K. Yip 


Economic and Social Council 

Hunter M. Richard 


Specialized Agencies 

Welcome to Harvard Model United Nations! My name is Juliana and I am very excited to be 

directing the Social, Cultural and Humanitarian Committee in January, which I anticipate 

will be an interesting, dynamic, and fun committee. A bit about me: I am a sophomore at 

Harvard, originally from New York City. I intend on studying either Computer Science or 

Physics, but I am also interested in everything about French culture, from the language to 

the music to the Nutella strawberry crepes (Music-wise, if you’re interested you should check 

out the BB Brunes, Tryo, and Coeur De Pirate). 

This year, SOCHUM will bring together high school students from across the globe to 

discuss one of two topics of recent international significance. I very much hope that you will 

find these topics pertinent to the countries you will be representing as well as beneficial to 

learn more about as students. I chose these topics in the hopes that they will be relevant to 

a high school audience, as each explores the effect of technology on society and culture. The 

first concerns internet censorship, which has been at the forefront of international concern 

lately due to pressure Google has received from various countries to restrict data available 

on the web. The second concerns how countries, developing and developed, should best 

go about collaborating in scientific pursuits. The press that CERN has received lately after 

successfully colliding particles at 7 TEV in Geneva, Switzerland, is the stimulus for this 

topic. 

The very best thing that you can do as delegates in preparation for SOCHUM 2011 is to 

get excited for a fabulous, albeit rigorous experience, and to open up your minds to creative 

methods for shaping the future of our world. I hope that you have yet to debate either 

censorship (for example, as it relates to Google) or international scientific collaboration (for 

example, as it relates to CERN) in other conferences, and both topics are only of relatively 

recent concern. Thus, you as delegates have a lot of room to propose new and innovative 

ideas, as long as they are in line with your country’s policy. In other words, it may be 

tempting for those of you who have been to conferences before to propose similar solutions 

to divergent topics, but I encourage you to take on more of an entrepreneurial and innovative 

mind-set in crafting resolutions, which will make committee more engaging for everyone. 

As you research, keep in mind that science and technology are developing more quickly than 

ever, and thus there is no set framework on how to address either of these topics. I want 

to hear some offbeat and new ideas in committee to compliment proven UN reactionary 

mechanisms, but also keep in mind that, as SOCHUM, these topics should be discussed 

primarily in light of their social, cultural and humanitarian influences. 

While the background guide, as well as research you will do concerning policy, will provide 

a roadmap for framing debate, coming to committee with enthusiasm, knowledge of policy, 

as well as a desire to develop new and clever protocols, will make the experience much more 

enjoyable. Until then, I strongly encourage you to email me to introduce yourselves, or to 

inquire about questions or concerns you may have. I am very much looking forward to 

SOCHUM, and I hope you are too! See you in January! 

Sincerely, 

59 Shepard Street, Box 205 

Cambridge, MA 02138 

Voice: (617)-398-0772 

Fax: (617) 496-4472 

Email: info@harvardmun.org 

www.harvardmun.org 


Juliana Cherston 

Juliana Cherston 

Director, Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee 


sochum@harvardmun.org 

3


INTRODUCTION 

International Collaboration in Science 

On 30 March, 2010, CERN, the world famous 

physics research facility based in Geneva, Switzerland, 

successfully achieved high-energy particle collisions at 7 

TEV. These collisions occurred within the Large Hadron 

Collider (the LHC), a giant particle accelerator buried 

under Switzerland and France in which particles are 

propelled around at speeds nearing that of light. This 

success represented a grand step for physicists in their 

quest to seek scientific evidence for the great mysteries 

of the universe. As spokesperson 

Fabiola Gianotti stated in CERN’s 

press release: “With these recordshattering 

collision energies, the 

LHC experiments are propelled into 

a vast region to explore, and the hunt begins for dark 

matter, new forces, new dimensions and the Higgs boson.” 

CERN is the epicenter of great excitement in the 

frontier of physics, but with great excitement comes 

a number of concerns that have been vocalized by 

various countries. Namely, recent developments at 

CERN compel us to examine how scientific research is 

conducted on a global scale, and to examine the potential 

for future international collaboration in science. One 

concern that has been raised is how to justify spending 

so much money, and dedicating so much energy towards 

theoretical fields of science in the context of poverty, 

hunger, and issues that are perceived by some as more 

directly of our concern. Austria, for example, briefly 

considered pulling funding from CERN last year, and 

Germany, France, and the UK currently top the list of 

financial contributors. Furthermore, the LHC alone has 

an annual power consumption of 800,000 megawatt 

hours. 

When CERN was first created in the early 1950’s (in 

collaboration with UNESCO), Isador Rabi, an American 

physicist, tabled a resolution that would have fought 

for the development of a number of regional scientific 

laboratories in order to motivate collaboration. Instead, 

in 1951 UNESCO passed the resolution that formally 

established CERN, and by 1953 12 founding states 

signed the CERN convention. 

Over fifty years later, we ask: what now? The primary 

goal of this committee is to analyze CERN’s relationship 

with various blocks of countries—namely developing 

countries, European countries, Middle Eastern countries, 

and East Asian countries—and to play a role in policy 

“CERN is the epicenter of great 

excitement in the frontier of 

physics...” 

reform to continue motivating the progress of scientific 

understanding within a cohesive and collaborative 

environment. Under CERN’s current philosophy, 

developing countries are asked to produce materials 

used to build the detectors rather than provide financial 

contributions, and CERN has made great efforts towards 

data distribution in these nations. Are there additional 

initiatives that should be taken? 

This topic is meant to forge a reactionary debate 

following events at CERN, and while debate should 

center around the future role of CERN within the 

international community, there is also room to talk 

more broadly about how to forge 

better communication in scientific 

research, and furthermore how to 

prioritize scientific research. Analyze 

and react to your country’s policies 

with CERN, consider CERN’s role in contemporary 

society, and create a vision for the future of scientific 

collaboration that is in line with your country’s policies 

in preparation for debate. 

Internet Censorship 

In April, 2010, Google released a tool entitled 

Government Requests which disclosed government data 

requests directed at Google. Brazil, Germany, India, and 

the United States top the list for removal requests, and 

Brazil, the United States, the United Kingdom, and India 

top the list for data requests. Meanwhile, following a 

cyber attack in January of 2010, Google officially stopped 

censoring data in China, redirecting users to uncensored 

data from Hong Kong’s servers. The trouble that Google 

has faced in its quest to divulge the world’s information 

is illustrative of the conflict between governmental 

censorship and the right to maintain access to global 

information. 

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has attempted 

to perform thorough investigations into censorship 

throughout the world. In one case study, HRW 

reported that a Tunisian internet café had a sign reading: 

“Opening disk drives is strictly forbidden. Do not touch 

the parameters of the configurations. It is forbidden to 

access prohibited sites. Thank you.” Tunisia is not alone 

in regularly blocking information concerning human 

rights abuses. Human Rights Watch also writes that 

Iran is known to imprison journalists and bloggers that 

publish words of dissent against the government, and 

Egypt has detained people in the past for various illegal 

online activities. 

4 



While countries recognize the necessity of the 

internet in the regulation of economics and politics in 

modern times, many countries simultaneously have 

blocked massive amounts of data from users. The goal 

of this topic area is to consider various proposals for 

reacting to internet censorship, and also to develop 

new and innovative policies. Human Rights Watch, for 

example, has suggested releasing all those detained for 

“exercising their right to free expression,” unblocking 

websites “that carry material protected by the rights to 

free expression and free information,” among other strict 

and clear courses of action. Amnesty International has 

also performed extensive research into online censorship, 

and in 2006 presented their findings at the UN Internet 

Governance Forum. In particular, Amnesty urged China 

to give domestic journalists the same rights as foreign 

journalists. 

The primary questions that need to be addressed 

concern reacting to Google’s latest stance on censorship, 

as well as deciding when, by national and international 

standards, a country is just in requesting information 

from companies or denying information from their 

citizens. The issue of censorship is highly complex and 

has recently drawn significant international attention, 

following Google’s policy modifications. Thus, this is 

a particularly opportune time for the United Nations 

to outline clear suggestions for reform in relation to 

censorship. 

HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE 

The Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian Organization 

(SOCHUM), is the Third Committee of the United 

Nations (UN) General Assembly, established with 

the signing of the United Nations Charter in 1945. 

According to Articles 9 and 10 of the Charter, committees 

composing the General Assembly have the right to put 

forth suggestions to the Security Council and to United 

Nations member states, implying that all resolutions 

passed by SOCHUM are unbinding and thus will only 

be effective if they have received widespread support 

among member states, all of whom are present on 

General Assembly committees. 1 

Two of the primary roles of the General Assembly 

that are pertinent to the Third Committee are, as 

stated in Article 13 of the UN Charter: “promoting 

international cooperation in the economic, social, 

cultural, educational, and health fields, and assisting in 

the realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms 

for all” 2 (UN Charter, Article 13). The goal of discussing 


international collaboration in science is, in the spirit of 

SOCHUM’s commitment to international cooperation 

and social concerns, to address how to best foster a 

dynamic working environment for scientific endeavors 

in a way that is inclusive of developing and developed 

nations, and that does not discriminate against women 

or minorities. In recent years, however, SOCHUM’s 

emphasis has been related on Human Rights concerns, 

and in the General Assembly’s 60 th session, for example, 

31 out of 62 resolutions addressed issues of human 

rights. 3 In discussing internet censorship, we are more 

broadly addressing the infringement of a person’s right 

to access information. 

In the past, SOCHUM is known for having made 

great strides in empowering women worldwide. In 1979, 

the General Assembly passed The Convention On the 

Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against 

Women, which, in the words of the United Nations, is 

described as an “international bill of rights for women.” 4 

The Committee also responds to issues of racial 

discrimination, oversees the recently formed Human 

Rights Council, protects the rights of refugees, preserves 

the right to free expression, reacts to social concerns such 

as crime prevention and drug control, and, most broadly, 

promotes international collaboration. 5 The 64 th Session 

of SOCHUM was chaired by Normans Penke of Latvia, 

announced in Press Release GA/10831 in June, 2009. 

SOCHUM is a large and active committee dedicated 

to addressing issues of social, cultural, and humanitarian 

concern. Due to the extensive responsibilities of 

the committee, it regularly collaborates with such 

organizations as the UN Food and Agriculture 

Organization (FAO), The UN Environmental 

Programme (UNEP), The UN High Commissioner for 

Refugees (UNHCR), The UN Education, Scientific, and 

Cultural Organization (UNESCO), The United Nations 

Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the World Health 

Organization (WHO), and thus plays a pivotal role in 

shaping the focus and progress of the United Nations. 

TOPIC A: INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC 

COLLABORATION 


The role of science has grown dramatically more 

significant in the modern era: fueled by advances in 

communications technology, as well as the ambitious 

determination of scientists to pursue large scale (and 

5


thus expensive) projects, science has become increasingly 

more collaborative in nature. The International Council 

for Science (ICSU) states that “Progress in science is made 

through the worldwide exchange of ideas, information, 

data, and materials… science is a cooperative exercise that 

thrives on open international interaction and exchange.” 6 

Science has taken a front seat in the global arena, 

and today, it is your job to ensure that all nations and 

all people have the opportunity to engage fully in the 

excitement. In this topic area, you will focus on the 

social implications of large scale international scientific 

organizations. Namely, how large collaborations like 

the International Space Station (ISS) and CERN (le 

Conseil Européene Pour La Recherche Nucléaire) should 

best cooperate with developing nations, politically 

controversial nations, and minority groups in order to 

maximize the spread of scientific knowledge and entice 

the world in cutting edge research, while preserving 

the cultural and humanitarian rights of scientists from 

developing nations. 

In theory, scientific organizations are a remarkable 

demonstration of global unity. CERN, for example, which 

hosts visiting scientists of 85 nationalities, successfully 

turned on the Large Hadron Collider in March 2010, 

which smashes together protons at speeds near that of 

light, representing one of the grandest successes of a 

major scientific collaboration. Furthermore, CERN has 

made active efforts towards developing an environment 

inclusive of all nations. South Africa, for example, 

recently joined the ATLAS collaboration; ATLAS is 

one of the two major experiments at the Large Hadron 

Collider. Reports, released during the 2010 World Cup 

matches, read as follows: “The South Africa Cluster has 

been unanimously admitted as a new member of the 

ATLAS collaboration, increasing the number of ATLAS 

institutions to 174. Representatives of the SA cluster 

were greeted…with Vuvuzela blowing.” 7 

However, great limitations to the large scale scientific 

collaboration remain, defined by the ICSU as threats 

to the freedom of association, which refers to travel 

restrictions for scientists, and threats to the freedom 

to pursue science, which refers to political restrictions 

placed on scientists. 8 If scientists from certain countries 

cannot travel, then those countries are left pursuing 

science in isolation, and some may deem the act of 

scientists being denied access to collaborations based 

on political, religious, ethnic or gender background as 

a case of discrimination. It remains a great concern to 

define how the international community should respond 

to cases where scientists are suspected of threatening 

The International Space Station, a major success in international collaboration 

6 


scientific security—such as one CERN scientist suspected 

of possessing ties to Al Qaeda in 2009—or cases where 

national politics interfere with global pursuits—such as 

the 2005 murder of Iraqi professor Wissam Al-Hashimi, 

a former vice-President of the International Union of 

Geological Sciences. 9 

Efforts to develop science into a globally inclusive 

pursuit have resulted in issues of critical concern to 

the United Nations, ranging from the alienation of 

developing nations that may lack the resources to 

contribute substantially global scientific endeavors, to 

an onslaught of discriminating 

behavior. The proper course of action 

to jump-start the development of 

international collaborations while 

preserving fundamental rights 

remains to be determined. How 

developing and developed nations should go about 

collaborating, considering the unequal balance of power 

and economic strength involved, remains a major policy 

dispute. 10 


For centuries, collaboration among scientists has been 

necessary in order to establish fundamental scientific 

and societal standards, such as the standardization of 

time zones and the development of consistent units of 

measurement. 11 However, at the dawn of the 20 th century, 

scientific collaboration among nations really began to 

take structure. In 1899, the International Association 

of Academies was established in Wiesbaden, Germany, 

uniting many prominent scientific institutions of the 

time like the Royal Society of London, the Academia 

dei Lincei in Italy, and the national Academy of the 

USA. The IAA’s charter stated that “The object of the 

association shall be to initiate and otherwise to promote 

scientific undertakings of general interest, proposed by 

one or more of the Academies, and to facilitate scientific 

intercourse between different countries.” 12 

After World War I, the International Research Council 

came into being. Its goals were to coordinate international 

scientific efforts, to create useful associations, and to 

communicate with relevant governments. 13 The ICSU 

continued to work on international standards in science, 

such as the development of a table of constants. In 1945, 

41 countries united to establish UNESCO through 

the newly formed United Nations, and the ICSU was 

the first NGO signed in by UNESCO. Henri Laugier, 


“For centuries, collaboration among 

scientists has been necessary in order 

to establish fundamental scientific 

and societal standards...” 

assistant Secretary General for the United Nations, saw 

value in the development of international laboratories, 

and in 1956, UNESCO founded CERN. 14 Throughout 

recent history, scientific collaboration has helped to 

bring societies together, even during periods of political 

turmoil. CERN, for example, worked with scientists in 

Eastern Europe and Russia even during the Cold War. 15 

As the 20 th century progressed, more emphasis was 

placed on the inclusion of developing nations in scientific 

pursuits, as can be seen in the creation of TWAS (Third 

World Academy of Sciences), TWNSO (Third World 

Network of Scientific Organizations) 

and in 1993, TWOWS (Third World 

Organization of Women in Science). 

In 2006, TWAS and TWNSO helped 

to form COSTIS, an organization 

that promotes science-based 

economic development in developing countries and 

promotes south-south and north-south collaboration. 16 

This organization is of particular interest to developing 

nations because its focus is on methods of scientific 

development that motivate economic growth, such as 

water purification and energy efficiency technologies. 

TWAS, an organization run through UNESCO and 

funded primarily by the Italian Government, also 

provides incentives for scientists to remain in developing 

nations, such as eight monetary prizes per year awarded 

to scientists who have spent at least ten years working in 

a developing nation, as well as the TWAS-AAS-Microsoft 

monetary award for African scientists with distinguished 

achievements in computer science. 17 

The ICSU 

Although organizations such as TWAS have been 

active and effective, The ICSU currently dominates the 

world’s stage when it comes to motivating international 

scientific collaboration, its members comprising 

111 scientific bodies, 29 scientific unions, and 134 

countries. 18 The ICSU has frequently defended the rights 

of scientists seeking visas for international travel. In the 

1970s and 1980s, the ICSU defended Eastern European 

Scientists who were denied visas to attend scientific 

meetings in Western nations. In the 1980s, for example, 

Taiwanese scientists were often denied visas by mainland 

China, Chinese scientists struggled to gain visas to Israel, 

Iraqis experienced difficulty obtaining visas for Sweden 

and South Korea, and Cuban scientists failed to obtain 

visas to the US and Australia. The ICSU was frequently 

successful in working with governments to reverse visa 


7


decisions, and when the ICSU failed to do so, it took 

other courses of action. 19 For example, in 1988 the 

ICSU General Assembly was relocated from Japan to 

China because Japan refused to administer visas to South 

African scientists. 20 

In 2002, the ICSU 

strongly condemned a 

boycott of Israeli scientists 

sponsored by the United 

Kingdom, which had 

come in response to the 

Israeli treatment of Palestinian 

students. The boycott became 

so severe that two Israeli 

scientists were fired from 

British scientific journal 

boards. The ICSU has 

also defended the rights of 

scientists in countries where 

speaking about topics such 

as health, education, or 

environmental issues in 

some cases result in torture, 

denial of medical treatment 

and/or arrest. 

In 2006, Southern African 

nations and Japan launched 

the Southern African Science 

and Technology Community 

(SASTeC) which is an 

organization of embassy staff members from southern 

Africa located in Japan. The goal of this organization is to 

organize scientific exchange programs and to formulate 

methods for data sharing. Japan also agreed to fund a 

number of research projects within Africa. 21 

The ICSU: Freedom of Speech and Persecuted 

Scientists 

In the 1980s, the ICSU intervened on behalf of 

physicist Andrei Sakharov, who was persecuted by the 

Soviet Union for expressing concern over uncontrolled 

progress and development as well as potentially dangerous 

applications of science. In the 1990s, various organizations 

intervened in response to environmentalist Wangeri 

Maathai, who had criticized Kenyan deforestation and 

was imprisoned as a result, as well as Yuri Bandazhevsky, 

a research scientist who was imprisoned after expressing 

concern over Belarusian policies on the detrimental 

health effects of Chernobyl. 22 Such cases of persecution 

represented a severe obstacle to collaborative pursuits. 

Case Study: International Space Station 

As the cold war came to a close, US President Ronald 

Reagan announced that NASA would construct a space 

station, and furthermore, that this project would be 

collaborative in nature: Japan, France, Canada, and West 

The Gemini South Telescope in Chile. Developing nations occasionally provide useful physical resources, 

such as tall mountains, for performing scientific research and may help motivate developed nations 

to collaborate globally 

Germany all helped to fund the project, and later on, 

Russia was invited to join as well. However, the United 

States took a leadership role from the start. Eugene 

Skolnikoff, A professor at the Massachusetts Institute 

of Technology who was involved with the ISS said: “We 

would decide what we wanted to do and tell others what 

to do and pony up the money. We tended to do this 

unilaterally and tell the others they had to go along.” 23 

In 2003, the collaborative nature of the project, however, 

finally began to show. Following a cease on US space flight 

after NASA’s Columbia shuttle exploded, NASA turned 

to the space station’s Russian teams to bring supplies to 

the station and to retrieve the astronauts on board; these 

flights were paid for by the European nations involved. 

In 2010, there was consensus that president Obama’s 

space plan is far more internationally collaborative 

in nature than that of previous US presidents. Eliott 

Pulhamm, head of the Space Foundation, applauded the 

collaborative tone of Obama’s policy statements, stating 

8 



that cooperation “is essential to bringing the benefits of 

space to the greatest number of people of the planet.” 

One example of enhanced collaboration comes through 

the sharing of data concerning current satellite locations, 

which acts as a confidence booster between nations and 

helps to prevent unforeseen spacecraft collisions. 24 


In a 2010 interview, ICSU Executive Director 

Deliang Chen stated that “Many of the problems we face 

are global in nature, covering a broad range of disciplines. 

Resources are quite limited at national level. We have to 

have more international cooperation efforts to achieve 

the goals necessary for society.” 25 Non-governmental 

organizations such as Sweden’s Sida, the World Bank, 

and NATO have all provided extensive funding for 

international scientific projects. 26 The increased number 

of scientific papers with authors of multiple nationalities 

suggests that international collaboration is on the rise; 27 

specifically, the percent of internationally co-authored 

papers nearly doubled between 1990 and 2000. 28 

However, studies analyzing such statistics often fail 

to address why such a transformation is taking place, for 

which certain theories have been proposed and will soon 

be elaborated upon: developing countries see benefits 

to cooperating with developed countries, increased 

division exists betweens scientific fields, there has been 

increased investment in science, there has been growth of 

communications technology and international trade, and 

large scale projects require financial contributions from 

multiple countries in order to thrive. However, scientists 

should be wary of resorting to international organizations 

purely for financial issues, seeing as competition among 

different laboratories or organizations helps push research 

forward more swiftly. 29 

Wagner and Leydesdorff: Counter-theories 

In order to properly assess how to drive scientific 

collaboration, it is important to study theories of why 

global interaction is on the rise, and Wagner and Lydesdorff 

present compelling conclusions. Specifically, they argue 

that the aforementioned explanations are insufficient to 

explain growth in scientific collaboration over the last 

two decades. 30 Some additional factors that may have 

stimulated an increase in co-authored papers include preestablished 

special programs, which may account for the 

increased co-authorship between Scandinavian and Latin 

American and African countries, as well as the increasing 

political cohesion of the European Union. Some authors 


have claimed that increased collaboration has come as 

a result of core scientific countries, whose behaviors 

are adopted by “peripheral countries.” However, in the 

1990s it was more the case that developing nations would 

link to regional hubs rather than global science centers. 

Another theory suggested that as science becomes 

more specialized, scientists must look further, perhaps 

often internationally, to find colleagues with similar 

research interests. To test this theory, Wagner and 

Leydesdorff in 2003 performed studies that concluded 

that while seismology is a more specialized field than 

geophysics, it is also more internationalized, and 

furthermore, that based on six case studies, international 

collaboration has been growing across all scientific fields, 

both broad and specialized. 31 Furthermore, it is true that 

large scale projects with high budgets, such as accelerator 

experiments or space research, often require contributions 

pooled from multiple countries. However again, the 

authors point out that collaboration is increasing in all 

fields of science, and not just in reputedly high-budget 

fields. 32 

As for the growth in public support for research, while 

it is logical that developing countries may be increasingly 

interested in participating in international collaboration, 

this theory does not explain the motivations of developing 

nations. The authors instead suggest that collaboration is 

motivated by the ‘recognition and rewards’ mechanisms 

within science, where scientists seek to publish papers 

with well-known researchers, and researchers seek out 

collaborators who are “most likely to enhance their 

productivity and credibility,” namely, those who are most 

likely to produce new knowledge. 33 Thus, they suggest 

that policy makers should be wary of knowledge leaks 

– for example, a scientist may uncover results that are 

considered valuable to a corporation in another country 

and may choose, for his or her benefits, to exploit the 

data there. 34 

Existing Collaboration Models 

Two types of collaboration models exist: bottom 

up collaboration, in which individual scientists work 

together informally, and top down collaboration, in 

which a contractual agreement is signed and government 

authorities are involved. 35 Many scientists, including 

former CERN Director General Chris Llewellyn- 

Smith, are against top-down approaches. 36 In the case 

of CERN, physicists in the USA, Russia, and India put 

pressure on their governments, ultimately persuading 

these governments to sponsor scientific involvement at 

9


CERN. 37 Informal collaboration allows scientists from 

developed countries to access and work with scientists 

from underdeveloped countries with specific skills and 

gives access to regions of geological or environmental 

interest to scientists, both for study and for the 

development of special facilities, such as telescopes placed 

on top of mountains in Chile and Hawaii. Collaboration 

is also beneficial if scientists wish to study diseases 

prevalent in developing regions. 38 Developing nations, 

however, must ensure that they are reaping fair benefits 

from research performed, such as a share in intellectual 

property rights. 39 

Communications Technology and “The Grid” 

The Internet has facilitated collaboration among 

nations, allowing scientists to work together on papers 

without physical proximity, and also allowing scientists 

to perform complex data analysis with simply a 

computer and an internet connection. In fact, the World 

Wide Web was originally designed for the purpose of 

facilitating collaboration among scientists. Research 

shows that nearly all collaborations begin with in-person 

discussions, and is then kept alive via conferences and 

research facilities, suggesting that communications 

technology is not solely responsible for motivating 

collaboration. 40 However, in some cases, it can be 

argued that communications technology is imperative 

for research; such is often the case when an experiment 

relies on grid computing. Grid computing is the process 

by which computers throughout the globe are linked 

together to increase computer power and simulation 

speeds by enormous magnitudes. 41 Naturally, in order 

to establish a grid, people worldwide must contribute 

their computer power, thus requiring high levels of 

international collaboration. CERN provides an example 

of a large and effective grid, which is composed of over 

100,000 computers in 33 countries and makes data from 

the Large Hadron Collider available to users anywhere 

in the world. 

Case Study: CERN 

CERN “worked” because early on, prior to facile 

transatlantic travel, European particle physicists had 

no other big lab but CERN, and furthermore, there 

was a distribution of power among countries at CERN, 

and thus a more balanced spectrum of views among 

the larger countries; hence, when the big countries 

disagreed, smaller countries were capable of swaying 

votes. 42 Furthermore, governments took a relatively 

hands-off approach to CERN, giving scientists a lot of 

power to design and manage the laboratory. In certain 

cases, rather than ask cities and countries to contribute 

funding, CERN instead requested the contribution 

mechanical components and has even provided cash 

in return; such was the case at least until 2003 with 

Russia and India—as well as the cities of Tokyo, Beijing, 

Chicago, and Madrid 43 —stimulating local industries 

and ultimately bringing together the parts at CERN in 

Geneva, Switzerland. 44 

Scientists generally spend short periods of time 

onsite, and then return to their home institutions 

The LHC Particle Accelerator, located in Geneva, Switzerland, the 

result of a 10,000+ scientist collaboration 

where they can continue to work on software and data 

analysis. One motivation for short periods of stay is to 

discourage the brain drain process by which developed 

nations absorb talent from developing nations; scientists 

immerse themselves in a worldly atmosphere, and take 

the knowledge back to their home institutes. 45 CERN 

has also used its grid as a tool for promoting involvement 

with nations; countries like Iran and Pakistan have 

demonstrated interest in helping to develop the grid. 46 

In October, 2009, the world was shocked to 

learn that a CERN scientist working on the LHCb 

experiment—another of the Large Hadron Collider’s 

major experiments—had been arrested in Vienne, a 

town near the lab, by the French secret service for 

suspicious ties to al-Qaeda. The scientist was a 32 year 

old Frenchman of Algerian decent who was believed to 

be communicating via internet with al-Qaeda officials 

and possibly planning attacks in France. 47 CERN 

cooperated with the investigation, and upon further 

10 



analysis, authorities determined that the CERN scientist 

was indeed intending to commit at least one attack on 

France. 

Most recently, CERN and the International Space 

Station have been collaborating on the Alpha Magnetic 

Spectrometer (AMS-02) project. On August 26 th , 2010, 

AMS-02 was flown from CERN in Geneva to the United 

States, where after some additional testing it will be 

launched on board the International Space Station where 

it will perform research on dark matter and antimatter. 48 

Case Study: China 

Since China initiated the Open Door policy in 

1978, the country’s role in scientific collaboration has 

skyrocketed; by 1997, China was participating in 35,000 

international projects related to science, which is 25 

times the number from 1978. The country has invited 

700,000 foreign specialists into the country and sent off 

300,000 citizens for international training. 49 From 1997 

to 1998, computer sales grew from 3.4 million to 4.7 

million, and have since skyrocketed. China has made 

substantial efforts to collaborate with European nations 

in scientific domains. For example, in 2001, the China- 

European Union Science and Technology Cooperation 

Promotion Office (CECO) was established with the goal 

of integrating Chinese scientists into European science 

programs, narrowing the gap between Chinese and EU 

scientific pursuits. The European Union also received 

benefits, gaining access to China’s National High 

Technology Research and Development Programme 

as well as the National Key Basic Research Program. 50 

CECO is meant to reform the scientific collaborative 

relationship between China and the EU, and has been 

successful thus far. 

Case Study: the Middle East 

UN Resolution 1737 imposed sanctions against 

Iran for failure to halt uranium enrichment programs. 

In response, European nations including France, the 

Netherlands, and Sweden refused visas to Iranian 

physicists. The Centre Nationale de La Recherche 

Scientifique (CNRS) in France declared that all projects 

collaborating with Iran needed to undergo security 

screenings. Furthermore, mathematician Ali Tahzibi 

is an example of an Iranian citizen, employed at the 

University of Sao Carlos in Brazil, who carefully arranged 

and purchased plane tickets for a sabbatical with CNRS’s 

Institute of Mathematics in Dijon. However, quite 

unexpectedly the French government failed to issue him 

a visa. 51 


In July of 2008, the Netherlands banned Iranians from 

accessing nuclear laboratories, and following September 

11, US visa qualification processes for Iranian citizens 

have been meticulous and lengthy. 52 The ICSU considers 

this a case of blatant discrimination, and worries that 

organizations may avoid collaborating with Iranians due 

to the added administrative burden. A similar situation 

exists in Israel, in which procedures for a Palestinian 

student to study in the country are so restrictive so as to be 

nearly impossible to comply with; Israeli academies have 

protested against the government-imposed restrictions; 

the ICSU has protested as well and stated: “Academic 

Institutions should have the responsibility and freedom 

to select students and staff without political or military 

interference.” 53 

Case Study: Africa 

The ICSU has 3 regional offices dedicated in parts 

of Africa in order to “ensure that the voice of developing 

countries influences the international agenda and ensure 

that scientists from the South are not only involved in 

research in frontier areas but also have the capacity to 

address problems of local and regional context,” as stated 

by former ICSU president Goverdhan Mehta. 54 One 

illustrative example of successful African collaboration 

is through HESS, the high-energy stereoscopic system 

telescope, which is the world’s largest gamma-ray 

telescope and is located in Namibia. The project includes 

collaborators from Namibia and South Africa. 55 African 

research, much like research in all developing nations 

with weak economies, tends to focus on areas of science 

that may provide the most direct benefit to nations, 

such as research in the agricultural sector, which has 

the potential to reform crop growth and lead directly to 

economic growth. 56 

Additional Cases of Visa Rejections 

In 1984 there were 54 visa refusal cases for the 

International Geological Congress in Moscow. In 1989, 

two Iranian citizens applied for visas to attend the 

IUPAC Congress in Stockholm. However, unable to 

prove that they were scientists, Sweden denied them visas. 

In 2005, the United States failed to administer a visa to 

Cuban scientist Vicente Verez-Bencomo, who was about 

to receive an award for the development of a low cost 

meningitis and pneumonia vaccine. 57 Also in 2005, an 

Ethiopian scientist specializing in biodiversity was denied 

a visa by Canada. In 2006, the United States denied a visa 

to Goverdhan Mehta, former head of the Indian Institute 

of Sciences in Bangalore, on the grounds of potential 

11


involvement with chemical warfare and bio-terrorism. 58 

The United States later apologized for the incident and 

issued a visa immediately. Some international attention 

has been given to this issue; for example, in 1976 the Free 

Circulation of Scientists, Standing Committee (SCFCS) 

produced for ICSU a document entitled “Advice to 

Indian scientist Goverdhan Mehta is one of many foreign intellectuals 

who have been denied visas. 

Organizers of International Scientific Meetings,” which 

set procedures for ICSU linked bodies and focused 

particularly on issues concerning the freedom of 

movement for scientists. 59 

Relevant Past Action 

In 2003, the OECD Global Science Forum published 

a report following a workshop held in Tokyo on “Best 

Practices in International Scientific Cooperation.” This 

workshop targeted the development of programs based 

in more than one country, the development of largescale 

facilities, and the regulation of large databases. 60 

In this report, it was decided that while a prescriptive 

formula is not possible, guidelines can be established 

in helping to establish a roadmap through working 

with “scientists, universities, research institutes, funding 

bodies, government agencies, legal advisors, high level 

government officials, intergovernmental agencies and 

the public.” 61 Issues such as board representation are 

simplified if participants are all of the same or similar 

type, such as academic institutions or governments. 62 

Although there is a tendency to draw scientists 

largely from institutions worldwide—who continue 

to work for, and receive funding from, their home 

institutions—doing so may result in a lack of cohesion 

among scientists in the collaboration. The report explains 

that when governments are involved, collaborative 

agreements are equivalent to intergovernmental treaties, 

but are ultimately effective mechanisms for outlining 

policies for a new organization or project. Some form 

of leadership must be established, either by one country 

taking control or by the establishment of a rotating 

secretariat. 63 Some form of business plan and possibly a 

monetary contribution mechanism must be established 

as well, such as whether participating nations will 

contribute a flat rate, a rate based on GDP, or a rate 

based on to what extent the country is involved in the 

organization. 64 Will there be an entry fee? CERN and 

other particle physics organizations have refrained from 

requiring a membership fee or accelerator operation 

fee, advertising an open door policy. 65 It must also be 

determined to what extent scientists from non-member 

countries will be able to access facilities and databases of 

the organization, as well as regulate the often inevitable 

political tension of choosing a location for any necessary 

facilities, be the facilities existing infrastructure or labs 

to be built in the future. 66 The workshop also considered 

the possibility of establishing a truly global funding 

system for international science, or a global institute 

that oversees scientific pursuits. 67 Finally, a checklist was 

produced outlining criteria to be considered when setting 

up an international collaboration, 68 and a template for a 

memorandum of understanding was drafted. 69 

The World Conference on Science has published a list 

of best practices and recommendations for strengthening 

international cooperation. These guidelines stated that 

developing nations need to play a larger role in the 

selection of research projects, make use of, and contribute 

to, electronic databases, and build national scientific 

centers such that scientists are more inclined to remain 

in their home countries. 70 For additional guidelines, see 

the cited report. 

One step the United Nations has taken is the 

declaration of scientific years, such as the International 

Year of Freshwater declared by UNESCO in 2003 and 

the Year of the Dolphin declared by UNEP in 2007. 

Furthermore, in 1998, Resolution 53/199 of the UN 

General Assembly outlined a procedure for proclaiming 

international years, which states that any theme for a year 

“should be of priority concern to all or the majority of 

12 



countries and should contribute to the development of 

international cooperation in solving global problems, in 

particular those affecting developing countries.” 71 

In addition, UNESCO has played a substantial 

role in promoting international projects, one of which 

is the Synchrotron light for Experimental Science and 

Applications in the Middle East (SESAME), involving 

Israel, Palestine, Iran, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, and others, 

working to stimulate development and cohesiveness in 

the Middle East. 72 

The ICSU has outlined suggested roles for various 

domains of organizations. NGOs are meant to establish 

overarching principles and assist individual scientists 

in need. Intergovernmental Scientific Bodies are meant 

to uphold the Principle of Universality and handle 

individual cases. National Academies and scientific 

associations are meant to assist with entry visas and 

provide national guidelines. National governments 

are meant to develop research practice and ethics 

guidelines for scientists. International Scientific Unions 

and associations are responsible for freedom and 

responsibility on an international level. Research funders 

are responsible for providing monetary resources without 

any discrimination, and develop effective research ethics 

guidelines to be followed as a condition of funding. 

Universities and research institutes should provide 

mechanisms for handling scientific misconduct and 

should uphold the Principle of the University of Science 

at the institutional level. 73 

Some other international treaties that promote 

investment and participation in joint science and 

technology endeavors include the Montreal Protocol 

(1987) the Vienna Convention for the Protection of 

the Ozone Layer (1985) The Convention on Biological 

Diversity (1992) The United Nations Framework on 

Climate Change (1992) the Kyoto Protocol (1997), and 

the United Nations Conference on Environment and 

Development, which was passed in 1992 and dedicates 

chapters to forging a scientific and technological 

community, as well as the transfer of environmentally 

friendly technology. 74 

Electronic Resources 

In 1992 the United Nations Conference on 

Environment and Development constructed a Chinese 

Bio-diversity Information System (CBIS), which helped 

to propagate scientific information. Countless similar 

databases have been established. African Journals 

On Line promotes African publications, BIREME, a 


bibliographic information system on health-related 

sciences and SciELO, a publication system for full 

science journals originating from Latin America, and a 

similar system called LATINDEX. 75 In 2008 the ICSU 

announced that it would establish a World Data Centre 

system over a three year period, which seeks to provide 

open access to data for the global science community 

and to be “a common globally interoperable distributed 

data system that incorporates emerging technologies and 

new scientific data activities.” 76 The ICSU Committee on 

Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) and the 

International Network for the Availability of Scientific 

Publications are two initiatives that help to increase the 

availability of scientific information. 77 


When scientists from different backgrounds are 

drawn together, an environment of creativity and 

problem solving is created. As smaller nations develop 

scientific capacity, they are perceived as being able to join 

the global scientific network. Furthermore, international 

collaboration can contribute to growth in developing 

countries. Some suggest that government policy is only 

influential as far as creating incentives, and that it may be 

most effective for the government to limit its involvement 

to creating opportunities for likeminded researchers to 

meet and organize themselves around important scientific 

questions. 78 One report that analyzed collaboration 

among Middle Eastern nations numerically, by analyzing 

bibliographical statistical data, proposed that developing 

nations should produce a database outlining all existing 

scientific establishments, allowing the public to become 

more aware of such establishments. 79 International 

scientific cooperation programs that emphasize the needs 

of developing countries could be supported, particularly 

ones that in turn support scientists from developing 

countries who contribute to the needs of their countries 

of origin, as well as programs that make information 

widely accessible via the internet. 

A counter argument to collaboration is the following: 

competition is healthy for the fields of science and 

technology, helping to corroborate results and create a 

more impassioned atmosphere of competition. Thus it 

is not necessarily in the world’s benefit for two similar 

laboratories to merge, but rather for them to compete a 

bit, and to share results with one another. 

When developing a new laboratory, there are 

huge financial benefits to using existing infrastructure. 

13


However, building new infrastructure on “green-field 

sites” helps to bring all international collaborators in on 

equal footing. 80 Entering countries need to have a voice 

in policy decisions and experimental design, as oppose to 

the host country taking full control. A “Detailed Balance” 

proposal is another option; for example, if Europe were 

trying to strike a deal with the USA for the LHC, then 

Europe would have to later contribute to an American 

physics project. 81 Furthermore, the responsibilities of 

manufacturing experimental parts can be distributed 

among all participating nations, which allows all nations 

to make use of local industry, and gives nations a visible 

role in the project. 

There is a risk of developing nations becoming overly 

dependent on Western technology. African nations 

could continue to work through a New Partnership for 

Africa’s Development (NEPAD) which was established 

by Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa. 

African nations and other developing nations could 

invest in local scientists and research instead of foreign 

technology. 82 NEPAD, and similar organizations in 

other developing regions, can focus its efforts on forging 

a collaborative and organized research environment for 

scientists. 

Questions A Resolution Must Answer 

Overall, resolutions may suggest specific international 

collaborations that should be formed, and/or may propose 

innovative ideas to help sculpt the future of organizations 

like the ISS and CERN. Resolutions should also address 

issues of discrimination against scientists (as well as cases 

of visa rejection), and should make the United Nations 

policy on the role of developing nations in large-scale 

international organizations more concrete. 

What relationship should the United 

Nations have with CERN, the ICSU, 

and similar organizations in the future? 

In other words, what role should the government 

play in “bottom-up” collaborations that have been 

spearheaded by scientists, as well as with national 

and international science organizations? 

Can the United Nations rely on scientists to selforganize 

effectively? How can the United Nations 

go about stimulating international collaboration in 

the sciences? 

Can incentives be strengthened for developing 

countries to participate in international 

collaborations? 

How should blockades to collaboration, such as 

difficulties acquiring visas, be handled? Although 

countries have a right to deny visas to suspicious 

subjects, cases of esteemed scientists failing to 

acquire visas continues to this day. Should visa 

policies somehow be modified? How should national 

and international science organizations respond to 

scientists who have been denied visas to study or 

work abroad? 

How do we justify dedicating resources to scientific 

research in physics and other sciences perceived as 

lacking practical benefit? How have we in the past 

and how will we in the future? There continues 

to exist a rift between developing countries that 

emphasize practical science and developed countries 

that dedicate significant portions of their budgets to 

pure sciences. 

What is the future of scientific collaboration? Should 

we develop additional large scale laboratories like 

CERN, and/or smaller labs in developing countries? 

Where does the future lie? If new labs are to be 

developed, how should collaborations best go about 

acquiring funds, decide where to physically place 

these labs, what the research emphasis will be, etc? 

What authority should member states of organizations 

like CERN have in controlling the organization as 

compared to states that take less of a role in funding 

and operating the organization? 

What role should developing countries play in 

international scientific organizations? How can we 

stimulate the participation of developing nations in 

this domain? How should we ensure that developed 

nations do not take full authority over setting the 

scientific agenda of an international collaboration? 

What are the best strategies to implement in order to 

manage the brain drain? Should developing nations 

play a role in pure science, or is it ok for developing 

nations to focus primarily on scientific pursuits that 

have clear-cut potential for economic gain? 

14 




Broadly, policy analysis can be divided into developing 

and developed nations. However, within these broader 

groups, keep in mind that specific countries have 

nuanced policies and that it is wise to use this only as a 

starting point. 

Developing Nations 

Currently, developed nations account for 20% of the 

world population and 80% of the world’s information, 

and thus much work needs to be done to promote 

the intellectual growth of developing nations. 83 While 

developing nations may recognize the value of science 

and technology in boosting economic growth, they do 

not necessarily see incentives in collaborating with more 

developed nations, nor do they necessarily see direct gains 

from investment in large-scale scientific pursuits. 84 On the 

one hand, there are many benefits to collaborating with 

scientifically developed nations. Developing nations can 

access expert knowledge in scientific fields and can apply 

this knowledge to issues of local concern. Scientists from 

developing nations can also gain access to more advanced 

facilities and can benefit from funding dedicated to large 

collaborations; some initiatives, such as the International 

Development Research Centre in Canada and the 

International Development Cooperation Agency in 

Sweden, have contributed directly to motivating global 

scientific collaboration. 85 Effective collaboration can also 

enhance political relationships between nations. 

Many disadvantages have been cited, however. For 

one, developed nations may take a stronger role in 

projects, using developing nations as mere data collectors, 

and having a firmer hold on the research agenda to be 

followed. 86 Whereas developed nations are often eager 

to pursue pure scientific exploration—often without 

an explicit purpose beyond pushing the boundaries 

of human knowledge—government officials from 

developing nations are far more concerned with direct 

societal problems for which there are benefits to be 

reaped from science, 87 such as questions concerning fresh 

water supplies and stabilizing crop growth. 

The Brain Drain issue comes into effect, concerning 

scientists from developing nations who travel to 


developed nations and exercise their knowledge there, 

rather than in the needy countries of origin. 88 Finally there 

are many burdens associated with collaboration, such as 

language differences, traveling expenses, discrimination 

against scientists—an issue particularly targeted by the 

ICSU 89 —as well as bureaucratic inconsistencies between 

the two collaborating nations. 90 These are all factors that 

developing nations consider when determining how to 

get involved with scientific pursuits. 

Developed Nations 

Developed nations seek to pursue scientific research 

that has both practical, economic, and political benefits, 

as well as purely intellectual benefits, with potential 

unforeseen applications in the future. Many developed 

nations have made active efforts to incorporate 

developing nations into large-scale projects, but as we 

have seen, often developed nations retain power to set 

the scientific agenda, and in some cases fail to grant 

visas to scientists. Developing nations work to satisfy 

their personal interests and motives while attempting to 

simultaneously collaborate with nations worldwide. This 

balancing act proves difficult; as stated in the ICSU’s 

1989 Universality of Science booklet, “Only in an ideal 

world would all individual scientists be enabled to make 

the most fruitful use of their abilities.” 91 


Begin your research on the ICSU website, scanning 

through the organization’s various policy statements and 

documents concerning the universality of science. Also 

look at the regional websites available for the ICSU which 

address specific projects that the organization has been 

working on, many of which have not been discussed in 

this guide. 

Here is Africa’s page, for example (http://www.icsuafrica.org/projects.htm). 

From there, look at the websites 

for some of the major existing collaborations, and, in 

part for your own benefit, spend a moment exploring 

the scientific research being performed as well! Then, 

move on to analyze your country’s specific policies and 

past actions. 

15


TOPIC B: INTERNET CENSORSHIP 


The Internet, first developed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee 

at the CERN Physics laboratory, has grown to represent 

one of the cornerstones of contemporary society, 

facilitating the high-speed global spread of information. 92 

Naturally, governments have responded to the increased 

ease of information flow by developing more rigorous 

regulatory mechanisms specifically catered to cyberspace. 

Data censorship on the web, however, frequently comes 

into conflict with a human’s right to freedom of speech 

as well as his or her right to access information. It is 

difficult, if not impossible, to strike a balanced middle 

ground when it comes to censoring data, and the idea of 

“moderately restrictive and effective at the same time” is 

perhaps unrealistic, and hindered by the complexity of 

this issue. 93 

It is possible to develop a sense of the depth of 

the conflict by recognizing how difficult it can be 

to determine when a website merits censorship. For 

example, Spain, Tunisia, and Thailand remove terrorist 

websites, despite the fact that “many radical and extremist 

groups perceived as terrorists by some state do not regard 

themselves as such.” 94 On a similar note, countries have 

widely divergent standards for obscene sexual material, 

and it can be concluded that in an extensive list of 

questionable material, there will likely be some country 

that considers each respective item to be censorshipworthy. 

95 It is difficult in such cases to determine whether 

governments are entitled to restrict information of this 

type, or whether such acts breach fundamental human 

rights. 

At the same time, some believe that a certain 

level of data censorship is necessary, and in fact the 

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 

(GA Res. 2200A) states that the right to freedom of 

expression is “subject to certain restrictions,” namely, 

restrictions that are necessary “for respect of the rights 

or reputations of others” and “for the protection of 

national security.” 96 The latter is particularly pertinent, as 

governments frequently attribute cases of censored data 

to acts intended to protect national security. Google, for 

one, recently released a page that maps how many data 

requests and removal requests the company has received 

from each respective country. Brazil tops the list with 

3663 data requests and 291 removal requests. Germany, 

India, and the United States follow for greatest numbers 

of data removal requests. 97 

Thus we are faced with a difficult overarching 

question: when is it justified to withhold data from 

the general public, how does a country prove that 

certain information threatens national security, and is 

it possible to create generic guidelines when countries 

possess divergent viewpoints about sensitive subjects 

such as terrorism, pornography, and anti-governmental 

Current levels of censorship throughout the world 

16 



discourse? And can we handle internet censorship in a 

similar manner as censorship of other media, given the 

speed of the Internet and the ability of an individual to 

use it to connect readily with others, thus creating the 

potential for more serious consequences when people are 

given full liberties of this manner? 98 

In the past year, the issue of internet censorship has 

become particularly pressing: following a number of 

cyber attacks traced to China, Google announced that 

web searches would no longer be censored in China, and 

that instead users would be redirected to Hong Kong’s 

servers. 99 Shortly after this announcement, the BBC 

quoted a Chinese governmental official stating: “Google 

has violated its written promise it made when entering the 

Chinese market by stopping filtering its searching service 

and blaming China in insinuation for alleged hacker 

attacks.“ 100 Furthermore, on 19 May, 2010, the Pakistan 

Telecom Authority banned Facebook, a globally popular 

social networking website, in protest against content 

offensive to Muslim tradition. 101 Internet censorship is 

a very real and dominant concern on the contemporary 

political arena, threatening freedom of speech and also 

empowering governments to act out against companies 

and websites who refuse to comply with state policy. 


The Internet did not gain popularity among the 

masses until the 1990’s, transferring gradually from 

institutions of higher education to the general public. 

One author refers to this first decade as a period of 

“amazement”, during which technology was subject to 

little regulation as compared to modern times. 102 

The Early Days 

In the late 1990’s, China was known to block 

IP Addresses, and communist organizations, fearing 

the spread of information, blocked websites that 

corresponded to threatening radio and television 

stations. 103 The Internet however, provided many roots 

for people to circumvent such attempts; proxies, websites 

that accessed and displayed illegal information, were 

the easiest method for circumventing this censorship. 

Meanwhile, from 1997-1998, the Internet remained 

illegal for Iraqi civilians, 104 and in 1998 Google appeared 

on the market, quickly gaining popularity throughout 

the United States. 

Human Rights Watch reported that while officials 

in Saudi Arabia have had access to the internet since 

1994, it was not made publicly accessible until 1999 


once the government felt it could adequately monitor 

content, and in fact the government openly, and proudly, 

admitted to having censored 200,000 websites in the 

first 18 months. 105 The United States and the European 

Commission focused their efforts primarily on Child 

Pornography, and encouraged users to voluntarily employ 

filtering systems. In 1998 the United States attempted 

to pass the Child Online Protection Act, which would 

require certain domains to restrict access to minors. 

However, the United States Federal Court ruled that Acts 

of this sort violate free speech, and thus it did not take 

effect. 106 

In Burma, Burmese expatriates communicated over 

an early email system called seasia-l to discuss Southeast 

Asia, and in 1994 BurmaNet became the first online 

news source for Burma, triggering an onslaught of prodemocracy 

websites. By 1996, the government put forth 

new policies by which citizens had to be registered with 

the Ministry of Communications to own a computer, 

and also developed news websites of their own. 107 

The Early 2000’s 

Iran 

In 2000, the Iranian government shut down more 

than 100 print media, which in turn increased the 

dominance of online journalism and online blogging 

in the country; although Iran claims in theory to allow 

citizens to express their views, as Article 23 of the Iranian 

Constitution states that “no one may be molested or 

taken to task simply for holding a certain belief,” the 

Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution nonetheless 

has prohibited all anti-governmental online discourse. 108 

Treatment of online Bloggers in Iran has been remarkably 

severe at times, despite the claim in Article 19 of the 

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 

(ICCPR), ratified in 1975 by Iran, and stating that, 

as quoted by a 2005 report by Human Rights Watch: 

“Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; 

this right shall include freedom to seek, receive, and 

impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless 

of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the 

form of art, or through any other media of his choice.” 109 

In particular, in 2004 the Iranian Judiciary cracked 

down strongly against online journalists, arresting and 

detaining many writers. 

One such story was recounted in a letter to the 

president of Iran at the time by a detainee’s father, quoted 

by Human Rights Watch: “the interrogator blindfolded 

Hanif and…the first question posed by the interrogator 

17


was to ‘write down all your immoral activities and 

corruptions’…Then, the interrogator told Hanif that 

according to confessions made by [another detainee], 

Hanif was the technical chief of the Rooydad Web site 

and asked Hanif to explain his activities…During sixtysix 

days of detention, Hanif spent fifty-nine days in a 

China Redirected Google Users to local search engines, resulting in 

outcry. 

solitary cell with approximate dimensions of two meters 

by one-and-a-half-meters.” 110 Cases of this sort, in 

which the Iranian government revolts against journalists, 

continue to be reported up through present times. For 

many more specific cases of maltreatment of online 

journalists in Iran, as well as in Syria, Tunisia, and Egypt, 

consult the cited Human Rights Watch report. 

China 

China first considered regulating the Internet in 1995 

when the Hong Kong government set up a working group 

to discuss “objectionable materials on the Internet.” 111 

Beginning in 1996, people with Internet accounts were 

required to register with the PSB (China’s federal police 

force), provide proof of identification, and fill out a Police 

File Report Form. In addition, they were required sign 

the Internet Access Responsibility Agreement, which 

prohibits Chinese citizens and foreign visitors from 

transmitting pornography or “state secrets.” 112 Fearing 

further regulation by the Chinese government, Internet 

Service Providers (ISP)s united to form the Hong Kong 

Internet Service Providers Assocation (HKISPA), and in 

1997 they put forth a Code of Practice, which encouraged 

legal activity on the internet and promoted user privacy; 

in truth, upon analysis, this code was brief, vague, and 

perhaps only an effort to fend off the government. 113 

From 2000 to 2002, two new technologies, “dynamic 

filtering”(a way of configuring a router to filter requests) 

and “DNS hijacking,” (the ability to redirect away from 

a domain name) prevented Chinese web users from 

accessing proxies. 114 In September 2002, China blocked 

Google for the first time for a period of two weeks, and 

in November 2003 China released what has come to be 

known as “the Great Firewall of China” which prevented 

certain content from being accessible from within the 

country. 115 By 2006, Google launched a Chinese edition 

of its search engine that censored political content and 

thus complied with Chinese law. Websites containing 

words like “democracy,” “freedom” and “human rights” 

were blocked. In fact, Cisco Systems, an American 

Company, has provided much of the equipment that 

China uses to block websites. 116 In 2002, Harvard Law 

School performed a study in which they discovered that 

Google.com was redirected to a number of other search 

engines, one example of which is pictured. However, 

popular outrage forced the government to revert back to 

the original Google and try out alternative techniques for 

censorship. 117 

Australia and Other Middle Eastern Nations 

Meanwhile, Australia passed the Broadcasting 

Services Amendment (Online Services) Act, which 

restricted pornographic content, and numerous Middle 

Eastern nations including Tunisia, Syria, and the United 

Arab Emirates released the internet to the general public 

while maintaining a close watch on its content. 118 

Jordan, Morocco, and Egypt are among the more 

flexible in their history of internet censorship, although 

a number of questionable incidents dominate Egypt’s 

history. For example, in 2003, Ashraf Ibrahim, a political 

activist, was detained and charged with, as quoted by 

Abdulla from Human Rights Watch, “harming Egypt’s 

reputation by spreading abroad false information.” 119 By 

2005, Tunisia experienced substantial internet censorship, 

and Human Rights Watch reported that hanging in an 

internet café was a portrait of President Zine El Abidine 

18 



Ben Ali with a sign reading “Opening disk drives is 

strictly forbidden. Do not touch the parameters of the 

configurations. It is forbidden to access prohibited sites. 

Thank you.” 120 

Numerous accounts exist of this sort. For example, 

Human Rights Watch also reports the case of Abd al-Razik 

al-Mansuri, a political activist who wrote many articles 

on www.akhbar-libya.com, but was later sentenced to 

one and a half years of prison, supposedly on the grounds 

of possessing an unlawful firearm. 121 

United States and Europe 

In 2004, The Federal Communications Commission, 

led by Chairman Michael Powell, announced the 

“Four Freedoms,” which Chairman Genachowski of 

the Brookings Institution summarized as: “Network 

Operators cannot prevent users from accessing the lawful 

internet content, applications, and services of their choice, 

nor can they prohibit users from attaching non-harmful 

devices to the network.” 122 In 2009, Genachowski was 

also a proponent of transparency of broadband Internet 

access companies, such that providers could not change 

the status of the Internet without alerting the general 

population. 

The United States has drafted a Global Online 

Freedom Act, introduced by New Jersey Representative 

Chris Smith, which would place restrictions on US 

companies operating in countries thought to censor 

data. 123 The European Union has proposed drafting a 

similar document. Officials from the European Union 

have expressed fears concerning the pressure that western 

technology companies have received to censor and 

disclose data. Google in China is a prime example of 

a company that for a while complied with censorship 

stipulations. 

In 2008, a number of European representatives 

brought forth “A Proposal for a Directive Of the 

European Parliament and of the Council Concerning 

the EU Global Online Freedom Act.” It called for the 

establishment of the Office of Global Internet Freedom 

(OGIF) within the European External Action Service, 

for 20 million Euros to be dedicated to anti-censorship 

tools, and for great pressure on European technology 

companies to develop standards in conducting business 

with foreign governments while protecting human rights. 

One of the EU policy statements within this document 

is: “to prohibit any European business from cooperating 


with officials of Internet-restricting countries in effecting 

the political censorship of online content” 124 (Article 3). 

Article 4 goes on to accuse European Businesses of this 

sort of “working contrary to the foreign policy interests 

of the Member States of the European Union,” and 

Article 5 appends a section on electric information to the 

EU Annual Report on Human Rights. Most forcefully, 

the document claims that any company that provided 

information about its users to foreign companies would 

be subject to criminal charges. 125 

In 2001, France and Germany requested that Google 

remove pro-Nazi search results, justifying the act by 

claiming that the information was not censored from the 

Internet, but only hidden from searches. 126 Alas, it is just 

to claim that as the Internet developed worldwide, so too 

did the global focus on regulation of cyberspace. 


In 2006, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) 

reported the ten most censored countries. North Korea 

topped list, followed by Burma, Turkmenistan, Equatorial 

Guinea, Libya, Eritrea, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Syria, and 

Belarus. 127 Internet censorship is a conflict that pervades 

contemporary society, though the development of the 

situation over the last few years varies from country to 

country. 

Republic of Korea 

South Korean policy is that anonymity does not exist 

in cyberspace – a special government code identifies 

all web posters, allowing the government to keep tabs 

on how people are expressing their opinions. 128 The 

Korea Communication Standards Commission (KCSC), 

responsible for data censorship, can essentially remove 

any data they deem warrants limited access. A United 

Nations Human Rights Commission report responded 

in the following manner: “The reality is that no Internet 

service provider has challenged KCSC’s decision in court 

and the person who posted contents is not guaranteed 

a right to challenge it. This makes freedom of speech 

in Korea vulnerable to government suppression. KCSC, 

a body controlled by a majority of commissioners 

appointed by the ruling party and the president, uses the 

authority not to cull out defamatory or crime-aidingor-abetting 

mater[ial] but to suppress the voices critical 

of the government” (A/HRC/11/NGO/20, pg 5). The 

19


government clearly maintains a tight grasp on Internet 

content. 

Case Study: China: Shi Tao, Yahoo, and Google 

As of July 2006, Amnesty International reported at 

least 54 imprisoned internet users, and Shi Tao, a poet 

and journalist, is one of them. Tao was head of the news 

division of Contemporary Business News, where at a 

meeting, Chinese Communist Party Central Propaganda 

Bureau security concerns were discussed. 129 In April 

2004, Tao sent an email to a pro-democracy website in 

the United States, in which he disclosed information 

about the Chinese government attempting to minimize 

attention on the 15 th anniversary of a substantial 

crackdown on pro-democracy activists. The Chinese 

government arrested Tao after receiving information 

from Yahoo, claiming he had unlawfully disclosed a 

“state secret.” 130 Yahoo Inc. openly admitted to having 

disclosed data to the Chinese government. 

On 11 September 2005, The Washington Post 

quoted Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang in saying: “To be 

doing business in China, or anywhere else in the world, 

we have to comply with local law. We don’t know what 

they want that information for, we’re not told what 

they look for. If they give us the proper documentation 

and court orders, we give them things that satisfy both 

our privacy policy and the local rules.” 131 A statement 

of this sort raises questions of the bounds on corporate 

responsibility, forcing us to question whether companies 

like Yahoo Inc. hold any accountability for what they 

consider to be “legal processes,” 132 or whether only 

governments that censor data should hold accountability. 

The World Organization for Human Rights USA believes 

that Yahoo is to blame, filing a statement of claim in 

2009 that Yahoo’s release of information in the case of 

Shi Tao was unjust. 133 

Yahoo’s insistence that business and politics should 

be treated as two separate entities comes into question 

when we consider recent developments, discussed briefly 

above, of Google’s presence in China. On 22 March, 

2010, Google boldly shut down its China-based search 

engine, and on 25 March, 2010, GoDaddy, a popular 

website that sells domain names, followed suit. 134 It 

should be noted that many countries require censorship 

of Google’s content: for instance, Google agreed to 

censor websites in Germany listed on the Federal Agency 

for Media Endangering Youth, and thus search results 

for the same terms on the US and German sites are 

different. 135 Google’s decision to terminate its Chinese 

search engine came as a result of the company’s desire 

to provide unfiltered data to Chinese citizens, given 

that attacks had been targeted at the Gmail accounts of 

Chinese Human Rights Activists and were seeking to 

further reduce freedom of speech on the web. Google’s 

blog updates on the subject received a remarkable amount 

of press and brought the conflict of Internet Regulation 

to the forefront of international debate. 

Case Study: The Saffron Revolution In Burma 

Since 1962, Burma had been ruled by the Burma 

Socialist Program Party, which enforced firm socialist 

policies throughout the country that lead the country to 

severe poverty. On 19 August, 2007, the 88 Generation 

Student Movement, a group of students, monks, doctors, 

housewives, and othersprotested against the Burmese 

military regime in a rally that attracted 150,000 and lasted 

for months. Bloggers and journalists captured details 

of the event, outsourced information to international 

media, which used satellite television and radio to 

broadcast the protest within Burma. 136 On 29 September, 

2007, the Burmese government reacted by shutting 

down the Internet and mobile phone service entirely, in 

an information blockade that lasted nearly two weeks. 137 

Ultimately, many believe that the protest had little 

political effect on the country, but the Revolution still 

demonstrated the power of simple technology to rapidly 

spread information, and also the threat of the current 

status of the Internet in many under-developed nations, 

where ISPs and Internet infrastructure is still tied to the 

government. 138 

Case Study: Facebook and Google in Pakistan 

On 19 May, 2010, The Pakistan Telecommunication 

Authority (PTA) blocked access to Facebook following a 

“Draw Mohammad” competition. The Draw Mohammed 

competition was seen as a disgrace among the religious, 

20 



“status update” service built into Google 

Mail, was released, and right after 

Google started encrypting user-website 

communication, according to Reporters 

Without Borders. 144 

Protest of Facebook and Google in Pakistan 

who believe that Mohammad should not be represented 

pictorially. The PTA followed with an order on 20 May, 

2010 to block access to Youtube, as well as Wikipedia, 

FlickR Internet access on Blackberry devices, and 450 

other websites according to Reporters Without Borders 

(RWB) and Newsweek. 139 Locals rallied in the streets 

in support of the ruling and of the Islamic Lawyers’ 

Movement that brought the contest to the government’s 

attention, believing Facebook to have disgraced Pakistani 

tradition. The Pakistani Telecommunication Authority, 

according to Newsweek, said that the Pakistani people 

were in support of this decision. 140 Pakistan was open 

to discussing with companies how to align website 

content with country policies, and in fact Facebook has 

considered censoring content to appease the Pakistani 

government. 141 

The Middle East 

On 29 April, 2010 Reporters Without Borders 

announced that the interior Ministry of the United 

Arab Emirates was planning on keeping track of cyber 

café customers, only furthering the public’s loss of 

anonymity on the internet. 142 Furthermore, a pattern has 

emerged in Middle Eastern countries whereby during 

periods of social unrest, the Internet has been known to 

slow down, with censorship levels peaking. Reporters 

Without Borders also reported on 11 February, 2010 

that during the Islamic Revolution’s 31st anniversary, 

internet connections in Iran were slowed in major cities, 

SMS messaging was partially blocked, and Google Mail 

had been blocked (mail services are harder to monitor 

than typical websites). 143 Furthermore, the Iranian 

government announced that it would permanently block 

Google Mail, a decision that came after “Google Buzz,” a 


Contemporary Australia 

Australia is rare in the sense that it 

is a democratic nation but still funds 

an administrative censorship body, 

though it is to be noted that this body’s 

censorship responsibilities are limited 

to pornographic and illegal content. In 

the last few years, proposed changes to 

Australian censorship policies have caught the eyes of 

major technology companies as well as the general public. 

One change concerns increased stringency on monitoring 

pornography: when entering Australia, people must 

report whether they carry pornographic content, and 

airport officials are now allowed to examine the contents 

of laptops and iPhones for pornography, which in some 

cases is considered a “prohibited import.” 145 

In addition to more stringent monitoring 

of pornography, Stephen Conroy, Australia’s 

Communications Minister, is helping to draft laws 

for a new mandatory Internet filter for pornography, 

advocating for terrorism, crime instruction, and drug 

use that Australia plans to implement. During a senate 

hearing in May, 2010, Conroy was criticized for attacking 

Google for certain breaches in privacy protection, such 

as the revelation that Google retains certain information 

about people’s internet connections, thereby deflecting 

attention on his own internet filter. 146 

Google and Yahoo are two corporations that have 

expressed doubt about Australia’s reforms. Conroy 

defended his plan by arguing that countries including 

the United Kingdom and Canada have filters as well. 

But Google responded that these filters are restricted 

to Internet pornography, and thus run little risk of 

countering the right to freedom of expression. 147 Local 

News agency The Australian questioned Conroy’s 

policy proposals, arguing that having to filter through 

all internet activity will greatly slow down the Internet, 

and also that websites like Amazon, which sells products 

that are considered illegal under Australia’s proposed 

legislation, would potentially be banned or restricted. 148 

As a note, however, Australia has been open and 

attentive to how people are reacting to their censorship 

plan – Google’s opinion piece, for example, is posted 

21


online, and is here excerpted: “Google, like many other 

Internet companies, has a global, all-product ban against 

child sexual abuse material, which is illegal in almost every 

country…but moving to a mandatory ISP level filtering 

Protest in Australia 

regime with a scope that goes well beyond such material 

is heavy handed and can raise genuine questions about 

restrictions on access to information.” 149 Controversy 

remains, although overall the Australian government has 

demonstrated itself to be a proponent of some censorship. 

Relevant UN Actions 

Throughout this guide we have cited the Universal 

Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as a core 

document that guarantees the right to freedom of 

expression. Countries including China voted for the 

document back in 1948. However, even though China 

signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political 

Rights (ICCPR), they did not ratify the treaty and thus 

are not legally bound to it. 150 Furthermore, states do not 

have full discretion under UN legislation to determine 

what constitutes a national threat, as UN Special 

Rapporteur Abed Hussein previously elaborated that only 

in the most serious cases of a direct military or political 

threat can such freedom be breached. 151 In a report to 

the UN Commission on Human Rights, Hussein urged 

that the Internet be treated in a similar manner to other 

means of communication and that freedom of expression 

be guarded under international legislation, such as the 

UDHR and the ICCPR. 

In February 2010, the General Assembly circulated a 

document submitted by RWB (and named A/HRC/13/ 

NGO/88) in which the organization condemned Tibet 

and China for temporarily shutting down certain 

blogging sites and blaming technical issues. Pressure to 

comply with the United Nations and to allow for UN 

visitors is one tactic for motivating a nation to modify its 

policies. For example, addressing the UN Human Rights 

Council, RWB urged the UN to push for the immediate 

release of detained Tibetan journalists, writers, and 

bloggers, to “end Internet censorship and crackdown on 

press freedom,” and most notably, to arrange for a visit 

of a UN Special Rapporteur on “the right to freedom 

of opinion and expression, whose invitation has been 

pending since 2002.” 152 The Johannesburg principle 

of 1995 states that freedom of expression can only be 

restricted, in the least extreme manner possible, when 

national security or public morals have been called into 

question, but only in cases where the threat is severe, 

incontestable, and there is no alternative to censorship. 153 

In 2005, the Working Group on Internet Governance 

published a report following the 2003 World Summit 

on Information Society (WSIS). The report placed 

emphasis on Internet governance in developing nations. 

In addition, a forum linked to the United Nations was 

established in which stakeholders would discuss issues 

concerning internet governance, the details of which are 

outlined in the report, but whose responsibilities include 

“interfacing with intergovernmental bodies and other 

institutions on matters under their purview which are 

relevant to Internet governance, such as IPR, e-commerce, 

trade in services, and Internet/telecommunications 

convergence” and “contributing to capacity-building for 

Internet governance for developing countries, drawing 

fully on local sources of knowledge and expertise.” 154 

In 2008, it was revealed that the International 

Telecommunication Union, a UN agency, was in talks 

with government officials concerning the potential for 

developing a legal “IP Traceback” mechanism more 

commonly known as Q6/177. In response to governments 

in favor of legal trace back mechanisms, Steve Bellovin, 

a prominent Columbia University computer scientist, 

stated that, as quoted by CNET, “institutionalizing 

a means for governments to quash their opposition 

is in direct contravention of the UN’s own Universal 

Declaration of Human Rights.” 155 

In November of 2009, an Internet Governance 

Forum (IGF) sponsored by the United Nations was held 

in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt, and an incident occurred in 

which Open Net Initiative representatives were required 

by United Nations officials to remove a poster containing 

22 



information about Internet censorship. This event caused 

great stir among Internet freedom activists. 156 

In the Geneva Convention on Internet Freedom, held 

in Geneva on March 9 th , 2010, the drafted declaration 

stated that “Internet providers should not be allowed to 

provide governments, corporations, or third parties any 

information about their users without their legal consent” 

(Article 9) and “Any attempt to restrict or intimidate 

people from free, uncensored, and secure access of the 

Internet constitutes a fundamental abridgement of 

human rights and undermines the promotion of peace 

and world order” (Article 10). 157 

In summary, while the issue of Internet censorship 

has garnered a substantial amount of attention from 

United Nations committees over the last few decades, 

there has yet to be an effective mechanism put forth that 

creates concrete privacy standards and ensures that the 

right to freedom of expression is protected. 


One domain of solutions consists of developing 

proposals for regulatory mechanisms for the Internet that 

allow governments to react in the case that international 

security is threatened, but also allow people to interact 

freely in cyberspace. The 2005 Working Group on 

Internet Governance referenced earlier outlined 

four proposals for forming an improved mechanism 

for regulating the Internet: (1) A Global Internet 

Council with representation from each region whose 

responsibilities would include coordinating international 

public policy about Internet-related issues; (2) More 

focus on reforming ICANN’s Governmental Advisory 

Committee, and a forum with equal representation 

of stakeholders that could coordinate issues between 

internet governance organizations, in lieu of an oversight 

organization; (3) An International Internet Council 

that could handle issues that do not fall within the 

responsibilities of other intergovernmental organizations 

(4) A Global Internet Policy Council responsible for 

international internet-related public policy, A World 

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers 

responsible for the technical and economic development 

of the internet, and a Global Internet Governance Forum 

that facilitates coordination of public policy issues. 158 

Another domain of solutions includes proposing 

courses of action for companies and other Non 

Governmental organizations that come under pressure 

from repressive governments to modify privacy policies. 


An example of one initiative that has been taken, and 

can be expanded upon, is the Global Network Initiative, 

launched in October 2008, whose members currently 

include Google, Human Rights Watch, Microsoft, 

Yahoo, and the Berkman Center for Internet And Society 

At Harvard University. The founding documents for 

this Organization, which can be accessed online, state 

that “Information and Communications Technology 

companies have the responsibility to respect and protect 

the freedom of expression and privacy rights of their 

users” and that “The implementation of these principles 

by participating companies requires their integration 

into company decision making and culture.” 159 The 

founding documents and policy suggestions of the 

Global Network Initiative (GNI) are highly specific and 

it is strongly encouraged that delegates consult the GNI 

guidelines for companies in more depth as they begin to 

develop solution proposals. 

One broad initiative the GNI has taken is to 

implement a three-phase process. In phase 1, from 2009- 

2010, companies work independently to implement the 

Principles of the GNI. In phase 2, by 2011, independent 

assessors will have been chosen, and companies will 

choose which independent assessor is responsible for 

reviewing their policies. In phase 3, from 2012 onward, 

the GNI board will approve a selection of independent 

assess ors for future use. 160 Of course, it is not guaranteed 

that every country agrees with the policies put forth by 

organizations such as this one, but it provides a firmly 

developed example of how the world might go about 

regulating technological companies on a global scale. 

A third domain of solutions consists of enlisting 

the public to help combat illegal content as a means of 

regulating content while paying genuine attention to the 

voice of the public. The European Commission has taken 

some steps of this sort by founding the International 

Association of Internet Hotlines (INHOPE) in 1999 

under the EC Safer Internet Action Plan. 161 INHOPE 

has hotlines that receive reports from the general public 

who encounter illegal Internet content. The EU Safer 

Internet Program also has some additional programs 

set up including INTERPOL, a 2009 illegal child 

pornography database that helps investigators coordinate 

globally, and I-DASH, a database for illegal video content 

that similarly helps police coordinate. 162 

Most of the aforementioned solutions target countries 

that, aside from some limited forms of content, believe 

that people should have free reign on the internet. Many 

nations, as this guide has shown, disagree fundamentally 

23


with this point of view. In this case, the goal for such 

nations is to argue for increased censorship to be legal 

and to bend the previously mentioned solution domains 

accordingly. 

Furthermore, as emphasized in my letter to you, I 

am very eager to hear innovative and yet-to-be-explored 

methods for reacting to Internet regulation, and thus 

do not by any means feel limited by ideas previously 

brought forth. Instead, it would be best to bring forth 

new concepts that are in line with your country’s policy. 

Questions A Resolution Must Answer 

When is it just to censor cyberspace, and what 

body (or bodies) should make this decision? To 

answer this question, consider whether individual 

governments, individual technological companies/ 

ISPs, or an international body of some sort should 

have the authority to decide what can justifiably be 

censored. How can this definition best be clarified? 

Also consider, in light of the Universal Declaration 

of Human Rights, if censorship of any form is legal 

at all. If you enlist a body to define protocols, what 

relationship will this body have to the GNI, who 

will be represented in this body, and what are some 

suggested conclusions that this body might come to? 

Could the body develop laws that vary from region 

to region? If you believe that governments should 

retain the right to govern the Internet, how do you 

justify this belief? 

How Should Internet Censorship and Censorship 

of Other Media Compare? Should the Internet 

and printed media be handled in a similar legal 

manner, or else how does the speed and accessibility 

of the Internet effect how the UN should react to 

censorship? 

What Political Responsibilities Should Companies 

Have, And How Does One Regulate and Enforce 

These Political Responsibilities? 

Companies like Yahoo, Google, and online News 

websites have in some cases put forth that in order to 

enter a nation’s market they must abide by local law. 

Is this a justification for censorship, and if not, what 

authority should companies have whilst publishing 

data in cyberspace? 

How Should the United Nations Best Respond to the 

Mistreatment of Web Posters? 

Countless stories, some discussed in this guide, have 

been released concerning the mistreatment and 

torture of web bloggers and web journalists, often 

posting information that challenges the residing 

power. What methods can the UN employ to 

circumvent this abuse of human rights? 

How Should the United Nations Go About Bridging 

the Information Gap Between Censored Countries 

And the Rest of the World? 

Does the UN have the right to supply mechanisms for 

circumventing censorship techniques to the general 

public? Should it be recommended to the Security 

Council that sanctions should be applied? Does the 

UN have the right to go against government wishes 

in the first place? 

How Should the United Nations Go About Procuring 

Information About the Status of the Internet 

Abroad? 

Should technological experts continue to devise 

means of determining which websites are blocked 

in countries? Should the United Nations place 

pressure on nations notorious for censorship to 

allow UN officials and rapporteurs into the nation? 

Or are such actions breaching the role of the UN, 

and should the organization instead continue to rely 

on information that citizens do manage to convey 

illegally? 


Asia 

China, Burma, and Vietnam are particularly known 

for censoring politically sensitive topics, whereas 

Indonesia, Laos, Nepal, and the Philippines have shown 

little signs of national filtering. In addition, many 

Asian nations are known for spreading propaganda via 

government-owned websites. In general, Asian nations 

seek to preserve political power; they recognize the 

importance of the Internet in modern society, but in 

most cases would be keener on passing resolutions that 

recognized the benefits of censorship in maintaining 

political and social order. 

Often, Asian nations seek to disguise such motives: for 

instance, more and more, Asian nations have passed laws 

that restrict “online defamation and vigilantism,” but in 

reality are applied when the government wishes to curb 

24 



online journalism. 163 Asian nations have also increased 

data retention requirements so as to allow for improved 

tracking. 164 Those nations that endorse censorship will 

support policies that allow for greater government 

regulation of the Internet, whether this motive is made 

clear or disguised in policy. However, increased research 

has made the rest of the global community more aware 

of the extent of filtering, and thus Asian nations must 

be careful to preserve their image in the eyes of other 

nations. 

Australia 

Australia’s policies are substantially stricter than 

those of all Western nations, as the constitution does 

not provide its citizens with freedom of speech. The 

Australian Communications and Media Authority has 

substantial power to regulate Internet content under The 

Broadcasting Services Amendment Bill of 1999, though 

the government also endorses a number of optional 

filters that people are encouraged to implement. 165 

Australia uses many reasons to remove Internet content, 

including, according to Opennet, “hate speech, copyright, 

defamation, and security policies.” 166 Australia has also 

refused to make use of ISP filtering. While the country 

does not support censoring at the level of some of the 

most vigilant nations―Australia pays attention to public 

desires, for example by posting feedback to their recent 

policy proposals online―the country is known to be fairly 

pro-internet censorship, especially as compared to New 

Zealand and to Western nations. 

Commonwealth of Independent States 

Countries like Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan see 

the Internet as a potential security threat and use this as a 

basis for supporting some Internet regulation. Following 

an Open Net Initiative test in 2006, Uzbekistan was 

found to filter the internet on the same level as countries 

like China and Iran, Turkmenistan is also known to filter 

the Internet substantially, and, conversely, Azerbaijan, 

Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, 

and the Ukraine had more mild forms of regulation. This 

region also uses Internet defamation laws as a means of 

targeting unwanted content, and there have been cases in 

which governments have applied pressure to websites to 

comply with governmental protocols. 167 Overall, Internet 

regulation is increasing over time in these nations, 

although it is not particularly severe at present. 168 


Europe 

Over the last decade, Europe has increased its filtering 

on pornographic and racist content. ISP companies have 

been known to feel pressure to regulate information 

when receiving requests to remove content so as not 

to come under scrutiny by governmental associations. 

The European Union has been working hard to create 

common standards for Internet filtering such as more 

clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of ISPs, and 

determining what should be regulated by region-wide law 

verses by each individual country. 169 As of 2005, many 

substantial search engines in Germany opted to use lists 

provided by a government agency responsible for media 

classification in filter search results that are harmful to 

minors. Some have criticized this system since the list 

of censored websites are not disclosed; however, since 

the websites are only being filtered from search results 

and not from the internet, disclosing the list is seen by 

the government as defeating the purpose of this form of 

censorship in the first place. 170 

Latin America 

Besides Cuba, which employs systematic filtering, 

countries in Latin America filter Internet content in a 

similar manner as the United States and Europe. Not 

too much legislation exists specifically concerning 

the Internet, although journalists have long been 

threatened, tortured, and murdered by Latin American 

governments. 171 Instances of Internet regulation are 

treated on a case-by-case basis due to the lack of general 

standards. 172 

Middle East and Africa 

Despite remaining one of the most heavily censored 

regions in the world, the Middle East recognizes the 

importance of the Internet in modern economics, and 

thus has invested fruitfully in its IT domains. 173 However, 

at the same time, countries have invested in regulatory 

technologies, often provided by Western nations. 

According to OpenNet, “The censors in the region attempt 

to control political content using technical filtering, laws 

and regulations, surveillance and monitoring, physical 

restrictions, and extra-legal harassment and arrests. 

Filtering of content deemed offensive for religious, moral, 

and cultural reasons is pervasive in many countries and 

is growing.” 174 Furthermore, governments continue to 

disguise filtering as technical malfunctions, and Internet 

regulation only continues to become more stringent. 

Internet use is still limited in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 

only Ethiopia is known to actively censor data. However, 

25


this is not to say that Sub-Saharan Africa supports an 

open Internet; only that it is difficult to know at present 

to what extent Internet filtering will take hold there in 

the future. 175 

United States and Canada 

The United States and Canada contain about one 

fifth of the world’s Internet users. 176 The Internet is 

regulated in some contexts, such as in schools, and in 

cases of child pornography. Canada also restricts Internet 

hate speech. The First Amendment has prevented many 

attempts for Internet regulation in the US, and often, 

private parties have succeeded in removing content from 

the Internet rather than blocking it. 177 The US has been 

known less for the removal of content, however, and 

more for intense surveillance and wiretapping of Internet 

communications mechanisms, particularly under former 

president Bush. 178 One should thus not believe that 

the US and Canada are free from Internet regulation, 

though regulation is certainly of a different nature than 

that of China, Australia, and the Middle East. However, 

especially recently, the US has reaffirmed its commitment 

to freedom of speech. In a recent speech, Hilary Clinton 

vocalized the US support of tools to circumvent censorship, 

as well as a desire to pursue innovative means of getting 

information to people throughout the world. 179 

Suggestions For Further Research 

Please come to committee having done additional 

research! Develop familiarity with your country’s policy, 

and invest some time into finding sources, books and 

documents of your own. To get you started, here are a 

few websites that are particularly helpful: 

http://www.julesmaaten.eu/_uploads/EU%20 

GOFA.htm. Here you will find “The Directive Of the 

European Parliament And the Council Concerning the 

EU Global Online Freedom Act”. This will give delegates 

representing European nations in particular a sense of 

how Europeans treat censorship in cyberspace. 

http://en.rsf.org. This is the official Reporters 

Without Borders website, which contains very valuable 

and recent information about the status of the Internet 

in countries throughout the world, as well as a solid 

understanding of the work that RWB has performed. 

http://www.hrw.org/en/node/11563/. This 2005 

report by Human Rights Watch entitled “False Freedom” 

gives a thorough look, with many first hand examples, of 

the mistreatment of Internet journalists in Egypt, Iran, 

Syria, and Tunisia. It would be helpful to peruse the 

main Human Rights Watch website as well. 

http://www.dbcde.gov.au/submissio 

ns/20100316_11.34.55/256-Google%20ISP%20 

filtering%20submission%20Feb%202010.pdf. Here is 

a link to the full report that Google submitted to the 

Australian government concerning the potential for 

increased censorship in that nation. It contains a lot of 

valuable information about Google’s policies in general, 

and about contemporary Australia. 

Here is a link to the report produced by the Working 

Group on Internet Governance in 2005, http://www. 

wgig.org/docs/WGIGREPORT.pdf, which established 

many important definitions related to censorship and 

also proposed the four models for an international body 

that were discussed earlier. 

Finally, check out Opennet.net and http:// 

www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/ for some valuable 

information about initiatives that have previously been 

taken in reaction to Internet censorship. 

POSITION PAPERS 

Please Submit Position Papers at a length of ~1 page 

per topic. High quality position papers will show me that 

you have performed additional research in each topic 

area and that you have a developed stance of where your 

country’s policy lies. High quality position papers will 

also be succinct yet direct. Please address the key points 

of the issue, your country’s past actions with regards to 

each issue, and a summary of the course of action that 

you intend to take in committee 

Background: Succinctly summarize the issue at hand 

(~1 shorter paragraph) 

Past Action: Address how your country’s policy has 

come to be. Were there particular people or events that 

lead to this policy? What are the key historical events that 

are beneficial to know about? (~1 longer paragraph) 

Future Action: What course of action would your 

country like to take? What position will your country 

argue in regards to the most contentious elements of 

each issue? And, what are some countries that share your 

position, and some countries that oppose your position? 

(~1-2 paragraphs) 

While you are by no means limited in committee to 

the contents of your position paper, I should be able to 

refer to the paper and quickly get the sense that you know 

what your country feels strongest about. Position papers 

are as much meant to help me as they are to help you. You 

will be able to refer to your position paper throughout 

committee to remind yourself of key points of debate, 

and writing the paper will provide an opportunity 

26 



for you to get a good sense of how you will conduct 

yourself in committee. This is a big committee and a big 

conference, and with that comes some responsibility for 

preparing adequately. A position paper will ground you, 

but to stand out in committee and to be able to most 

thoroughly represent your country’s policies, you will in 

most cases need to prepare and bring along additional 

research. Please contact me over the next few weeks with 

any questions in regards to position papers! 

CLOSING REMARKS 

I spent this past summer researching at CERN 

where I saw a beautiful model of international scientific 

collaboration in action and attended meetings that 

addressed the issue of developing countries in the domain 

of research. From this experience the issue of improving 

models for collaboration and spreading this type of 

institution more widely very much appeals to me. While 

it may not turn out to be highly relevant to committee, 

I encourage you to spend a bit of time exploring the 

latest experiments at CERN, which you may have heard 

about from recent news articles and/or from Angels and 

Demons. Over time, experiments making use of data 

from the LHC are likely to change how we understand 

the underlying nature of the universe. 

I am very excited about these two topics, and I hope 

that this background guide has helped to get you excited 

too. As I said in the opening remarks, I hope that beyond 

the scope of this committee, learning more about the 

social and cultural implications of internet censorship 

and large scale scientific collaboration will help make 

you more aware that modern science and technology is 

awesome, but also very much restricted by how we (and 

during committee, how you!) choose to shape our world’s 

global policies. 

ENDNOTES 

1 United Nations, Charter of the United Nations, 24 October 1945, 1 UNTS XVI, available at: http://www. 

unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6b3930.html, Article 12 [accessed 26 May 2010] 

2 ibid, Article 13 

3 “Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural.” Welcome to the United Nations: It’s Your World. Web. 27 May 2010. 

. 

4 “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.” Welcome to the United 

Nations: It’s Your World. Web. 27 May 2010. . 

5 “UN General Assembly - Third Committee - Social, Humanitarian & Cultural.” Welcome to the United 

Nations: It’s Your World. Web. 27 May 2010. . 

6 Universality of Science in a Changing World. Issue brief. International Council For Science, Dec. 2004. 

7 Herton, Gregor. “Decisions and Elections at the ATLAS Collaboration Board, 2 July 2010.” 7 July 2010. 

E-mail. 

8 Universality of Science in a Changing World. Issue brief. International Council For Science, Dec. 2004, 1. 

9 ICSU Condemns Violence Against Scientists in Iraq. Statement. International Council For Science, Jul. 

2006, 1. 


10 International Scientific Collaboration: a Quick Guide. “Introduction.” SciDev. Geoffrey Oldham, 1 Apr. 

2005. Web. 12 Aug. 2010. . 

11 Greenaway, Frank. Science International. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1996.Print. 1 

12 ibd, 10-11 

13 ibd, 23 

14 ibd, 72-73 

15 Liewellyn-Smith, Chris. “International Collaboration in Science: Lessons From CERN.” SCIENCE FOR 

THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY A New Commitment (2000): 132. Print. 

16 “G77’S Ministers of Foreign Affairs Endorse New Consortium for S&T.” Welcome to TWNSO. Web. 20 

Aug. 2010. . 

17 TWAS - The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World. Web. 20 Aug. 2010. . 

18 Stirling, George C. “INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATION: INTERNATIONAL 

YEARS OF SCIENCE.” OECD Global Science Forum, 10 Sept. 2007. Web. . 

19 “Freedom, Responsibility, and the Universality of Science.” ICSU, 2008. Web. 2010. . 6 

20 Ibd, 6 

21 Malakata, Michael. “Southern Africa to Boost Collaboration with Japan.” SciDev, 28 Feb. 2008. Web. 

22 Aug. 2010. . 

22 ibd, 8 

23 Niiler, Eric. “The Politics of the International Space Station : NPR.” NPR, 14 Mar. 2003. Web. 25 

Aug. 2010. . 

24 Spotts, Pete. “Obama Space Policy Prizes International Cooperation.” Christian Science Monitor, 

28 June 2010. Web. 25 Aug. 2010. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0628/Obama-spacepolicy-prizes-international-cooperation 

25 Gristwood, Adam. “Create or Conform?” Public Service UK, 20 Apr. 2010. Web. 26 

Aug. 2010. . 

26 Wagner, Carloine S. and Loet Leydesdorff, 10 

27 International Scientific Collaboration: a Quick Guide. “The Benefits of International 

Collaboration.” SciDev. Geoffrey Oldham, 1 Apr. 2005. Web. 12 Aug. 2010. . 


29 Liewellyn-Smith, 132 

30 Wagner, Carloine S. and Loet Leydesdorff. “Network Structure, Self-Organization 

and the Growth of International Collaboration in Science”, 3. (for detailed citations see table 1 in the 

cited article). 


32 ibd, 5 

33 ibd, 21 

34 ibd, 24 

35 International Scientific Collaboration: a Quick Guide. “Formal and Informal Collaboration.” 

SciDev. Geoffrey Oldham, 1 Apr. 2005. Web. 12 Aug. 2010. . 



38 International Scientific Collaboration: a Quick Guide. “Formal and Informal Collaboration.” 

SciDev. Geoffrey Oldham, 1 Apr. 2005. Web. 12 Aug. 2010. . 

39 ibd, “The Values of Formal Collaboration” 


41 “Grid Briefings: Grid Computing in Five Minutes.” Gridtalk. European Commission, Aug. 2008. 

Web. Aug. 2010. ,1. 


43 Ellis, John. “Developing Countries and CERN.” CERN Courier. CERN, 1 July 2003. Web. 25 

Aug. 2010. . 


45 ibd, 133 

46 ibd, 133 

47 “’Al-Qaeda-link’ Cern Worker Held.” BBC, 9 Oct. 2009. Web. 27 Aug. 2010. . 

48 “AMS Experiment Takes off for Kennedy Space Center.” CERN Press Release, 18 Aug. 2010. Web. 

28 Aug. 2010. . 

27


49 Hu, Quiheng. “Science Across Borders: How Far to the Goals.” SCIENCE FOR THE TWENTY- 

FIRST CENTURY A New Commitment (2000): 129. Print. 

50 “European Focus on Biotechnology in China.” Success Stories. European Commission, 2005. Web. 

. 

51 Butler, Declan. “France Cracks down on Iranian Scientists.” Nature, 10 Dec. 2008. Web. . 

52 ibd 

53 Gustafsson, Bengt. “Sanctions Against Scientists Threaten Progress.” Nature, 8 Oct. 2009. Web. 26 

Aug. 2010. 

54 Campbell, Carol. “Education In Developing World A Top Priority.” SciDev, 24 Oct. 2008. Web. 

28 Aug. 2010. . 

55 High Energy Stereoscopic System. Web. 27 Aug. 2010. . 

56 Chandiwana, Stephen. “NEPAD: Vision for Africa.” Science Careers, 8 Nov. 2002. Web. 28 Aug. 

2010. http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2002_11_08/ 

noDOI.11154576044829791144. “Pareto’s Law”. 

57 Alfano, Sean. “US Denies Cuban Scientist Visa.” CBS News, 8 Nov. 2005. Web. 26 Aug. 2010. 

. 

58 “No Decision on Indian Scientist’s Visa Yet: US Embassy.” The Times of India, 17 Feb. 2006. 

Web. 25 Aug. 2010. . http://www. 

siliconindia.com/shownews/Denial_of_visa_to_scientist_sparks_outrage_in_US_-nid-31082. 

html 

59 “Advice to Organizers of International Scientific Meetings.” ICSU, 1995-1996. Web. Aug. 2010. 

. 

60 “Report of the Workshop on Best Practices in International Scientific Cooperation.” OECD Global 

Science Forum, Feb. 2003. Web. Aug. 2010. . “Overview”, 1. 

61 ibd, “Background”, 2 

62 Michalowski, Stefan. A Template for Establishing, Funding, and Managing an International 

Scientific Research Project Based on an Agreement Between Governments or Institutions. OECD, 

23 June 2005. Web. Aug. 2010. . 

63 “Report of the Workshop on Best Practices in International Scientific Cooperation.” OECD Global 

Science Forum, Feb. 2003. Web. Aug. 2010. .“Leadership”, 5 

64 ibd, “Funding and Finance”, 5 


66 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001207/120706e.pdf 

67 ibd, 9 

68 See Annex B, “Checklist of Best Practice Principles,” Report of the Workshop on Best Practices in 

International Scientific Cooperation 

69 Michalowski, 9-18 

70 Michalowski, “Thematic meeting report” 

71 Liewellyn-Smith, “Table 2”, 4 

72 Cashmore, Roger. “Science Helps Bring Nations Together.” CERN Courier, 12 Nov. 2004. Web. 

Aug. 2010. . 

73 “Freedom, Responsibility, and the Universality of Science.” ICSU, 2008. Web. 2010. . 19-20 

74 “International Cooperation in Science And Technology: An Overview of African Protocols and 

Approaches.” African Ministerial Council on Science and Technology. Web. Aug. 2010. . 

75 Cetto, Ana María. “Sharing Scientific Knowledge through Publications: What Do Developing 

Countries Have to Offer?”. 149 

76 http://www.icsu-wds.org/ 

77 “Freedom, Responsibility, and the Universality of Science.” ICSU, 2008. Web. 2010. . 9 


79 Alami, J. El, JC Dore, and JF Miquel. “INTERNATIONAL SClENTlFlC COLLABORATION 

IN ARAB COUNTRIES.” Web. Aug. 2010. . Conclusion, 370 

80 Liewellyn-Smith,134 

81 ibd, 134 

82 Chandiwana, Stephen. “NEPAD: Vision for Africa.” Science Careers, 8 Nov. 2002. Web. 

28 Aug. 2010. . “The Role of Scientists.” 

83 Xuan, “The development of the Internet in China and its influence on 

sharing of scientific information.” . 144 

84 International Scientific Collaboration: a Quick Guide. “Introduction.” SciDev. Geoffrey Oldham, 1 

Apr. 2005. Web. 12 Aug. 2010. . 

85 ibd, “The Benefits of international collaboration” 

86 ibd, “Possible Disadvantages” 

87 Hu, 131 

88 Hu, 131 

89 Hu, 131 

90 International Scientific Collaboration: a Quick Guide. “Introduction.” SciDev. Geoffrey Oldham, 1 

Apr. 2005. Web. 12 Aug. 2010. .“Possible 

Disadvantages.” 

91 Greenaway, 107 

92 Ward, Mark. “BBC NEWS | Technology | How the Web Went World Wide.” BBC NEWS. Web. 

30 May 2010. . 

93 Timofeeva, Yulia. Censorship in Cyberspace: New Regulatory Strategies in the Digital Age on the 

Example of Freedom of Expression. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2006. 14. Print. 

94 Timofeeva, 19. 

95 Timofeeva, 22. 

96 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, G.A. res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR 

Supp. (No. 16) at 52, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171, entered into force Mar. 23, 

1976, Article 12 

97 “Government Requests Directed to Google and YouTube.” Google. Web. 27 May 2010. . 

98 Timofeeva, 24 

99 Drummund, David. “A New Approach to China: an Update.” Official Google Blog. 22 Mar. 2010. 

Web. 27 May 2010. . 

100 “BBC News - China Condemns Decision by Google to Lift Censorship.” BBC NEWS | News Front 

Page. 23 Mar. 2010. Web. 27 May 2010. . 

101 Bawany, Aleem. “Facebook Ban: Ramifications of PTA’s Censorship Efforts – The Express Tribune.” 

The Express Tribune - Global Standard, Local Perspective. 24 May 2010. Web. 27 May 2010. . 


103 Defeat Internet Censorship: Overview Of Advanced Technologies And Products. Issue brief. Global 

Internet Freedom Consortium, 21 Nov. 2007. Web. Section 3. 28 May 2010. . 

104 Abdulla, Rasha A. The Internet in the Arab World: Egypt and beyond. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 

77. Print. 

105 Abdulla, 77 

106 “Internet Censorship - Law & Policy around the World.” Electronic Frontiers Australia: Civil 

Liberties Online. Electronif Frontiers Australia, 28 Mar. 2002. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

107 Chowdhury, Mridul. The Role of the Internet in Burma’s Saffron Revolution. Issue brief. Internet 

& Democracy Case Study Series. The Role of the Internet in Burma’s Saffron Revolution. Berkman 

Center At Harvard University, Sept. 2008. Web. 28 May 2010. Section: “the New Mass Media 

Model in Burma.” 

108 2005, July. “False Freedom” Human Rights Watch. 14 Nov. 2005. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

109 ibid, “Legal Constraints on Free Expression.” 

110 ibid, “The Group Detentions of August-October 2004.” 

111 Rao, Sandhya, and Bruce C. Klopfenstein. Cyberpath to Development in Asia: Issues and Challenges. 

Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002. 75. Print. 

112 Rao, 72 

113 Rao, 76-77 

114 “Defeat Internet Censorship White Paper” (see citation xvii), 5. 

115 International Debates. April 2010, Vol. 8 Issue 4, 21-23. 

116 Goodman, Peter S. “Yahoo Says It Gave China Internet Data - Washingtonpost.com.” The 

Washington Post. 11 Sept. 2005. Web. 28 May 2010. . 

117 A Starting Point: Legal Implications of Internet Filtering. Rep. Opennet Intiative, Sept. 2004. Web. 

28 May 2010. . 

118 Abdulla, 82-85 

119 Abdulla, 86 

120 “False Freedom.” (See Citation xxii). Section 3. 

121 “False Freedom” (See Citation xxii). Section 3, “Summary: Regional Overview.” 

28 



122 Genachowski, Julius. “Preserving a Free and Open Internet: A Platform for Innovation, 

Opportunity, and Prosperity.” OpenInternet.gov. 21 Sept. 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

123 Internet Censorship Fact Sheet. Issue brief. Amnesty International. Web. 28 May 2010. . 

124 European Union. DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL 

concerning the EU Global Online Freedom Act. COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN 

COMMUNITIES, 2008. Web. 28 May 2010. . 

125 Nolan, Justine. “The China Dilemma: Internet Censorship and Corporate Responsibility.” 

University of New South Wales, 12 Dec. 2008. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

126 A Starting Point: Legal Implications of Internet Filtering. Rep. Opennet Intiative, Sept. 2004. Web. 

28 May 2010. . 

127 “PRESS CONFERENCE ON ‘10 MOST CENSORED COUNTRIES’.” United Nations. 2 May 

2006. Web. 28 May 2010. . 

128 http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G09/136/80/PDF/G0913680. 

pdf?OpenElement 

129 “HRIC Case Highlight: Shi Tao and Yahoo.” Human Rights in China, 2005. Web. 28 May 2010. 

. 

130 “CHINA: Shi Tao.” Amnesty International USA. 2010. Web. 29 May 2010. . 

131 Goodman, Peter S. “Yahoo Says It Gave China Internet Data.” Washington Post. 11 Sept. 2005. 

Web. 31 May 2010. . 

132 ibid. 



134 “After Google, Another US Internet Company Decides to Limit Its Services in China.” Reporters 

Without Borders. 25 Mar. 2010. Web. 29 May 2010. . 


136 “Asia: Overview.” OpenNet Initiative. Web. 29 May 2010. . 

137 Chowdhury, Mridul. The Role of the Internet in Burma’s Saffron Revolution. Issue brief. Internet 

& Democracy Case Study Series. The Role of the Internet in Burma’s Saffron Revolution. Berkman 

Center At Harvard University, Sept. 2008. Web. 28 May 2010. Section: Introduction 

138 Ibid, Section: “The Saffron Revolution and the New Mass Media Model.” 

139 “List of Blocked Websites Gets Longer.” Reporters Without Borders. 20 May 2010. Web. 30 May 

2010. . 

140 Husain, Miranda. “Losing Facebook: Inside Pakistan’s Decision to Crack Down on the Web.” 

Newsweek. 21 May 2010. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

141 Ibid. 

142 “Files to Be Kept on Internet-users Going Online in Cybercafes.” Reporters Without Borders. 29 Apr. 

2010. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

143 “Connections Severed or Slowed and Google Mail Blocked in Latest Anti-Internet Offensive.” 

Reporters Without Borders. 11 Feb. 2010. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

144 ibid. 

145 Matyszczyk, Chris. “Porn on Your Laptop? Aussie Customs Looks for It | Technically Incorrect - 

CNET News.” Technology News - CNET News. 20 May 2010. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

146 “Google Hits Back at Conroy.” Sydney Morning Herald. 26 May 2010. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

147 Valentino-DeVries, Jennifer. “Google, Yahoo Object to Australia’s Plan for Internet Filtering.” Wall 

Street Journal. 26 May 2010. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

148 Fitzgerald, Ross Ross. “Internet Censorship Remains Part of Conroy’s Agenda | The Australian.” 

The Australian. 8 May 2010. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

149 Publication. Mandatory ISP Level Filtering Submission to the Department of Broadband, 

Communications & Digital Economy. Google, 20 Feb. 2010. Web. 30 May 2010. . 



151 Report of the U.N. Special Rapporteur, Mr Abid Hussein, pursuant to the Commission on 

Human Rights Resolution 1993/45”. Reference E/CN.4/1995/32, 14 December 1995, para 48. 

152 United Nations. A/HRC/13/NGO/88: “Written Statement Submitted by Reporters Without Borders 

International, a Non-governmental Organization in Special Consultative Status” Human Rights 

Council, 5 Feb. 2010. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

153 2005, July. “False Freedom” Human Rights Watch. 14 Nov. 2005. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

154 Report of the Working Group on Internet Governance. Rep. June 2005. Web. 30 May 2010. .11-12. 

155 McCullagh, Declan. “U.N. Agency Eyes Curbs on Internet Anonymity | Politics and Law - CNET 

News.” Technology News - CNET News. 12 Sept. 2008. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

156 “FAQ: What Happened at the Internet Governance Forum? | OpenNet Initiative.” OpenNet 

Initiative. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

157 “Geneva Declaration on Internet Freedom.” Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and 

Democracy. 9 Mar. 2010. Web. 31 May 2010. . 

158 For More information on each of these proposals, see pages 13-16 of the Report of the Working 

Group on Internet Governance 

159 “Principles.” Global Network Initiative. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

160 “Governance, Accountability, and Learning Framework” Global Network Initiative. Web. 30 May 

2010. . 

161 See inhope.org 

162 “Fighting Illegal Content - Europa - Information Society.” EUROPA - European Commission. Web. 

30 May 2010. 

163 “Asia: Introduction”” OpenNet Initiative. 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

164 “Asia: Conclusion”” OpenNet Initiative. 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

165 “Australia and New Zealand: Offensive Content” OpenNet Initiative. 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. 

. 

166 “Australia and New Zealand: Conclusion” OpenNet Initiative. 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

167 “Commonwealth of Independent States: Overview” OpenNet Initiative. 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. 

. 

168 “Commonwealth of Independent States: Conclusion” OpenNet Initiative. 2009. Web. 30 May 

2010. . 

169 “Europe: Introduction” OpenNet Initiative. 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

170 “Europe: Social Filtering” OpenNet Initiative. 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

171 “Latin America: Introduction” OpenNet Initiative. 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

172 “Latin America: Conclusion” OpenNet Initiative. 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

173 “Middle East/North Africa: Introduction” OpenNet Initiative. 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

174 “Middle East/North Africa: Conclusion” OpenNet Initiative. 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

175 “Sub Saharan Africa: Conclusion” OpenNet Initiative. 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

176 Internet Usage World Stats - Internet and Population Statistics. Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2010. 

Web. 31 May 2010. . 

177 “North America: Introduction” OpenNet Initiative. 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

178 “North America: National Security, Computer Security” OpenNet Initiative. 2009. Web. 30 May 

2010. . 

179 Clinton, Hilary Rodham. “Remarks on Internet Freedom.” January 21st, 2010. 


29


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Topic A: International Collaboration in Science 

“Advice to Organizers of International Scientific Meetings.” ICSU, 1995-1996. Web. Aug. 2010. . 

Alami, J. El, JC Dore, and JF Miquel. “INTERNATIONAL SClENTlFlC COLLABORATION IN ARAB 

COUNTRIES.” Web. Aug. 2010. . Conclusion, 370. 

Alfano, Sean. “US Denies Cuban Scientist Visa.” CBS News, 8 Nov. 2005. Web. 26 Aug. 2010. . 

“’Al-Qaeda-link’ Cern Worker Held.” BBC, 9 Oct. 2009. Web. 27 Aug. 2010. . 

“AMS Experiment Takes off for Kennedy Space Center.” CERN Press Release, 18 Aug. 2010. Web. 28 Aug. 2010. 

Butler, Declan. “France Cracks down on Iranian Scientists.” Nature, 10 Dec. 2008. Web. . 

Campbell, Carol. “Education In Developing World A Top Priority.” SciDev, 24 Oct. 2008. Web. 28 Aug. 2010. 

. 

Chandiwana, Stephen. “NEPAD: Vision for Africa.” Science Careers, 8 Nov. 2002. Web. 28 Aug. 2010. 

Cashmore, Roger. “Science Helps Bring Nations Together.” CERN Courier, 12 Nov. 2004. Web. Aug. 2010. . 

Cetto, Ana María. “Sharing Scientific Knowledge through Publications: What Do Developing Countries Have to 

Offer?” 

Ellis, John. “Developing Countries and CERN.” CERN Courier. CERN, 1 July 2003. Web. 25 Aug. 2010. . 

“European Focus on Biotechnology in China.” Success Stories. European Commission, 2005. Web. . 

“Freedom, Responsibility, and the Universality of Science.” ICSU, 2008. Web. 2010. . 

“G77’S Ministers of Foreign Affairs Endorse New Consortium for S&T.” Welcome to TWNSO. Web. 20 Aug. 2010. 

. 

Greenaway, Frank. Science International. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1996.Print. 

“Grid Briefings: Grid Computing in Five Minutes.” Gridtalk. European Commission, Aug. 2008. Web. Aug. 2010. 

, 

Gristwood, Adam. “Create or Conform?” Public Service UK, 20 Apr. 2010. Web. 26 Aug. 2010. . 

Gustafsson, Bengt. “Sanctions Against Scientists Threaten Progress.” Nature, 8 Oct. 2009. Web. 26 Aug. 2010. 

Herton, Gregor. “Decisions and Elections at the ATLAS Collaboration Board, 2 July 2010.” 7 July 2010. E-mail. 

Hu, Quiheng. “Science Across Borders: How Far to the Goals.” SCIENCE FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 

A New Commitment(2000): 129. Print. 

ICSU Condemns Violence Against Scientists in Iraq. Statement. International Council For Science, Jul. 2006 

“International Cooperation in Science And Technology: An Overview of African Protocols and Approaches.” African 

Ministerial Council on Science and Technology. Web. Aug. 2010. . 

International Scientific Collaboration: a Quick Guide. “Introduction.” SciDev. Geoffrey Oldham, 1 Apr. 2005. Web. 12 Aug. 

2010. . 

Liewellyn-Smith, Chris. “International Collaboration in Science: Lessons From CERN.” SCIENCE FOR THE 

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY A New Commitment (2000). Print. 

Malakata, Michael. “Southern Africa to Boost Collaboration with Japan.” SciDev, 28 Feb. 2008. Web. 22 Aug. 2010. 

. 

Michalowski, Stefan. A Template for Establishing, Funding, and Managing an International Scientific Research Project 

Based on an Agreement Between Governments or Institutions. OECD, 23 June 2005. Web. Aug. 2010. . 

Niiler, Eric. “The Politics of the International Space Station : NPR.” NPR, 14 Mar. 2003. Web. 25 Aug. 2010 

30 



No Decision on Indian Scientist’s Visa Yet: US Embassy.” The Times of India, 17 Feb. 2006. Web. 25 Aug. 2010. 

“Report of the Workshop on Best Practices in International Scientific Co-operation.” OECD Global Science Forum, 

Feb. 2003. Web. Aug. 2010. 

Spotts, Pete. “Obama Space Policy Prizes International Cooperation.” Christian Science Monitor, 28 June 2010. 

Web. 25 Aug. 2010.http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0628/Obama-space-policy-prizes-internationalcooperation. 

Stirling, George C. “INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATION: INTERNATIONAL YEARS OF 

SCIENCE.” OECD Global Science Forum, 10 Sept. 2007. Web. . 

Universality of Science in a Changing World. Issue brief. International Council For Science, Dec. 2004. 

Wagner, Carloine S. and Loet Leydesdorff. “Network Structure, Self-Organization and the Growth of International 

Collaboration in Science”. 

Xuan, “The development of the Internet in China and its influence on sharing of scientific information.” . 

Topic B: Internet Censorship 

A Starting Point: Legal Implications of Internet Filtering. Rep. Opennet Intiative, Sept. 2004. Web. 28 May 2010. 

. 

Abdulla, Rasha A. The Internet in the Arab World: Egypt and beyond. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 77. Print. 

“After Google, Another US Internet Company Decides to Limit Its Services in China.” Reporters Without Borders. 

25 Mar. 2010. Web. 29 May 2010. . 

Bawany, Aleem. “Facebook Ban: Ramifications of PTA’s Censorship Efforts – The Express Tribune.” The Express Tribune 

- Global Standard, Local Perspective. 24 May 2010. Web. 27 May 2010. . 

“BBC News - China Condemns Decision by Google to Lift Censorship.” BBC NEWS | News Front Page. 23 Mar. 2010. 

Web. 27 May 2010. . 

Chowdhury, Mridul. The Role of the Internet in Burma’s Saffron Revolution. Issue brief. Internet & Democracy Case 

Study Series. The Role of the Internet in Burma’s Saffron Revolution. Berkman Center At Harvard University, Sept. 

2008. Web. 28 May 2010. 

Clinton, Hilary Rodham. “Remarks on Internet Freedom.” January 21 st , 2010. . 

“Connections Severed or Slowed and Google Mail Blocked in Latest Anti-Internet Offensive.” Reporters Without Borders. 

11 Feb. 2010. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

“Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.” Welcome to the United Nations: It’s 

Your World. Web. 27 May 2010. . 

Defeat Internet Censorship: Overview Of Advanced Technologies And Products. Issue brief. Global Internet Freedom 

Consortium, 21 Nov. 2007. Web. Section 3. 28 May 2010. . 

Drummund, David. “A New Approach to China: an Update.” Official Google Blog. 22 Mar. 2010. Web. 27 May 2010. 

. 

European Union. DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL concerning the EU 

Global Online Freedom Act. COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, 2008. Web. 28 May 

2010. . 

“False Freedom” 2005, July. Human Rights Watch. 14 Nov. 2005. Web. 30 May 2010. 

“Files to Be Kept on Internet-users Going Online in Cybercafes.” Reporters Without Borders. 29 Apr. 2010. Web. 30 

May 2010. . 

Fitzgerald, Ross Ross. “Internet Censorship Remains Part of Conroy’s Agenda | The Australian.” The Australian. 8 May 

2010. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

Genachowski, Julius. “Preserving a Free and Open Internet: A Platform for Innovation, Opportunity, and 

Prosperity.” OpenInternet.gov. 21 Sept. 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

“Geneva Declaration on Internet Freedom.” Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy. 9 Mar. 2010. 

Web. 31 May 2010. . 


31


Goodman, Peter S. “Yahoo Says It Gave China Internet Data - Washingtonpost.com.” The Washington Post. 11 Sept. 2005. 

Web. 28 May 2010. . 

“Google Hits Back at Conroy.” Sydney Morning Herald. 26 May 2010. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

“Government Requests Directed to Google and YouTube.” Google. Web. 27 May 2010. . 

Husain, Miranda. “Losing Facebook: Inside Pakistan’s Decision to Crack Down on the Web.” Newsweek. 21 May 

2010. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, G.A. res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 52, 

U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171, entered into force Mar. 23, 1976, Article 12. 

“Internet Censorship - Law & Policy around the World.” Electronic Frontiers Australia: Civil Liberties Online. Eletronif 

Frontiers Australia, 28 Mar. 2002. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

Internet Usage World Stats - Internet and Population Statistics. Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2010. Web. 31 May 2010. 

. 

Internet Censorship Fact Sheet. Issue brief. Amnesty International. Web. 28 May 2010. . 

“List of Blocked Websites Gets Longer.” Reporters Without Borders. 20 May 2010. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

Matyszczyk, Chris. “Porn on Your Laptop? Aussie Customs Looks for It | Technically Incorrect - CNET News.” Technology 

News - CNET News. 20 May 2010. Web. 30 May 2010. . 

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Social, Humanitarian and Cultural - Harvard Model United Nations

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