Communication Rights, politics and policy: Achieving Right to Communicate

This paper addresses at least two colloquium themes: 'Historical perspectives' and 'Governance transformations on the global scene'. The thesis of this paper is that the confluence of the internationalization of human rights, the economy, and information and communication technology (ICT) creates a context for advancing communication rights as embodied in the right to communicate. We examine how the increasing expansion throughout the world of (1) human rights, (2) of electronic communication, and (3) of a pervasive global economy along with their confluence creates an opportunity to advance communication rights through the entrenchment of a right to communicate as a basic human right. However, reviewing earlier efforts to translate the right to communicate into public policy, we argue that the entrenchment of a right to communicate can only be achieved by creating broad-based political movements at the national level. Such movements have the potential of transforming the internationalization of a right to communicate into a universal human right.