Our primary topic for today will be an intense examination of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations, December 1948. Human Rights, a UN commission created in 1993 is organized by committees -- (e.g., Committee Against Torture, Committte on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Committee to eliminate Discrimination against Women, Committee to eliminate Racial Discrimination, Committee on the Rights of the Child, and Human Rights Commmittee).

A parallel body, the European Commission on Human Rights of the European Union enacted a human rights law in 1998 and asked for frequent reports. The most current review is Monthly Review; Human Rights and Democratization November 2000. The first section concerns Human Rights Outside the European Union. Annex 3 is also of particular interest dealing with protection of human rights at the national and European level.

You may wish to explore the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) site. Of particular interest might be IFLA's Long Term Policy which cites Article 27 of the UN's Declaration of Hunman Rights as the basis for a basic human right to information. Article 19 of this document supports IFLA's recently created Committee on Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE). FAIFE's in its Libraries and Intellectual Freedom document promulgates a basic "right to know", as follows:

"All human beings have the fundamental right to have access to all expressions of knowledge, creativity and intellectual activity, and to express their thoughts in public."

A number of other human-rights-related organizations may be of interest to explore. For example, Human Rights Education Associates (HREA), a nonprofit organization devoted to education on the topic. Check out their fancy Electronic Resource Center. The Links section on this page lists human rights organizations and efforts by major world regions. Check out your country or region to see what's available.

Other organizations include:

• Amnesty International
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Human Rights Internet; Linking the Digital Divide:
• Human Rights Watch
• Internet Free Expression Alliance
• and many others

As part of our discussions of this grand topic of human rights, we will want to hear Sean on his investigation of IFLA and Nicole on FID. In addition, five people have agreed to give us an overview of the issues they are developing for the first paper:

• Kim Duckett -- Cultural challenges to girls' education. What efforts are being made to equalize educational opportunities for girls?
• Sean Knowlton
• Chad McGougan -- "The Population Bomb;" latent, defusing or just ticking away
• Cynthia Merrill -- Economic effects of AIDS on southern Africa and effect on population
• Christine Stachowicz -- Indigenous film industries' role in portraying the culture of a country or region
• Leslie Sult -- Information's role in easing or ending ethnic conflict.

Do we have folks who would like to comment on the books they selected? I think we didn't hear from Leslie, Dee Dee, Chad and Karen.

I think we'll have a busy and interesting session.

Revised 2/24/2001.