Category Archives: News

The Middle East and North Africa remains one of the world’s most troubled media environments, despite some gains since 2011. Today the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD), International Media Support (IMS) and Maharat Foundation are unveiling a Statement on Media Regulatory Reform in the Middle East and North Africa: Criminal Restrictions on Media Content. … Continue reading →

The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD), working with Democracy Reporting International (DRI), has recently published a Briefing Paper on International Standards on Transparency and Accountability. The Paper is one of a series which focuses on the main foundations of democracy. These, in turn, are drawn from a 2011 DRI report outlining the key components … Continue reading →

UNESCO has recently published a book on community radio prepared by the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD), Tuning into development: International comparative survey of community broadcasting regulation. The book focuses on international standards govenring the regulation of community radio as well as the legal framework for this in some thirty countries from different regions … Continue reading →

The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) has done an analysis of the latest draft of the Access to Information Law being prepared by the Palestinian authorities which indicates that the law has been substantially weakened since our last analysis in December 2013. Using the RTI Rating (www.RTI-Rating.org), the December draft obtained a score of … Continue reading →

Strong demand for information is critical to successful implementation of the right to information. It helps both motivate public authorities to undertake necessary supply side measures, and identify and address weaknesses. To promote implementation of Indonesia’s Law 14/2008 on Public Information Disclosure, the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) and the Indonesian Alliance of Independent … Continue reading →

As part of an ongoing programme to promote the right to information (RTI) in Indonesia, the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) and the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL) today released a Training Manual for Public Bodies on Implementing Law 14 of 2008 Regarding Openness in Public Bodies. The Manual has already been used … Continue reading →

In October 2013, Sierra Leone became the 96th country in the world, and the 12th country in Africa, to pass an RTI law. An analysis by the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) rates the Right to Access Information Act as tied for the 5th strongest in the world. The law scored 124 out of … Continue reading →

The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) and the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL) are today releasing two sets of guidelines designed to assist Indonesian public bodies overcome the major challenges associated with implementing the right to information (RTI) legislation Indonesia adopted in 2008. One guideline provides an overall roadmap of what public bodies … Continue reading →

The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) have prepared a Note analysing the Right to Access Information Law, No. 11 of 2013, adopted recently by the government of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The Law is a relatively progressive piece of legislation, garnering 98 points out of a … Continue reading →

An assessment of Palestine’s draft Law on the Right of Access to Information by the Centre for Law and Democracy using the RTI Rating (www.RTI-Rating.org) has found that the draft would obtain a rather modest score of 92 points out of a possible 150, around the middle of the 95 countries globally with right to … Continue reading →

Specialist right to information organisations Access Info Europe and Centre for Law and Democracy led on the drafting of a set of recommendations for progressive improvements to the right to information (RTI) which should be introduced by governments participating in the Open Government Partnership. These recommendations form the right to information (RTI) chapter of the … Continue reading →

The Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) has been a magnet for controversy since its inception, largely due to the excessive secrecy in which it is being negotiated and rumours that its intellectual property provisions would threaten Internet freedom. Today, the Centre for Law and Democracy has released an Analysis which confirms that these fears … Continue reading →

The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) is concerned that a secrecy law about to be adopted by Japan’s parliament signally fails to respect international standards and, in particular, the standards set out in the Global Principles on National Security and the Right to Information (The Tshwane Principles), which CLD participated in drafting. “We respect … Continue reading →

A key element of the OGP process is that the country-level action plans should be developed in a broadly consultative manner with local stakeholders. The third common expectation of OGP Participating Countries, as spelled out in the June 2012 Articles of Governance, is that States should: Develop country action plans through a multi-stakeholder process, with … Continue reading →

Intense campaigning by Irish and international civil society organisations has resulted in an important policy reversal by the Irish government. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Brendan Howlin, has withdrawn, for now at least, an amendment to the Freedom of Information Bill 2013 which threatened to charge multiple up-front fees for requests deemed to … Continue reading →

Over the past three years, delegates from 12 countries representing 800 million people and 40% of the global economy have been secretly negotiating a sweeping trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Since their inception, the TPP negotiations have been widely criticised for their lack of transparency and failure to involve non-State players, including … Continue reading →

The success or failure of a right to information regime is heavily dependent on the public officials who are tasked with implementation, and whether they are informed about their transparency obligations. Yesterday, as part of a wider project to support implementation of the Indonesian Law on Public Information Openness, the Centre for Law and Democracy … Continue reading →

Global right to information organisations Access Info Europe (AIE) and the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) today called on Open Government Partnership (OGP) Participating Countries to make serious commitments to strengthen their right to information laws in the next round of action plans, due to be presented in April 2014. One of the biggest … Continue reading →

The Government of Bhutan has posted a draft of the Right to Information Bill, 2013, for comment. The draft Bill sets out procedures and other rules to give practical effect to citizens’ right to access information held by public authorities, as guaranteed by Article 7(3) of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Bhutan. As part … Continue reading →