[Media-watch] FW: UNESCO publishes study on freedom of information laws

[David Miller]

>23-01-2004 (UNESCO)
>
>UNESCO has published a study of freedom of information laws that examines
>best practices in 10 countries. Written by ARTICLE 19 Law Programme
>Director Toby Mendel, "Freedom on Information: A Comparative Legal Survey"
>analyses laws in Bulgaria, India, Japan, Mexico, Pakistan, South Africa,
>Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
>
>The study that is available at
>http://www.article19.org/docimages/1707.pdf
>examinex international standards and trends, and outlines nine principles
>governing effective freedom-of-information laws. The survey also looks at
>the public disclosure policies of two international institutions - the
>United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank.
>
>The right to freedom of information, commonly understood as the right to
>access information held by public bodies, is now widely recognised as a
>fundamental human right. There is a massive global trend towards legal
>recognition of this right as countries around the world that aspire to
>democracy either have adopted, or are in the process of reparing, freedom
>of information laws. This represents an enormous change from even ten
>years ago, when less than one-half of the freedom of information laws
>now in place had been adopted.