Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Leesi Ebenezer Mitee stated the relevance of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to the right of free access to public legal information thus: “There is no international or regional human rights instrument that specifically created the right of public access to legal information as a human right.[119] Nevertheless, it is not just a legal right, which I have established that it is, in Part C above; it is also a human right with a derivative status. That means it acquires its status from a parent human right, which is the right to freedom of expression and the press.[120] Although the UDHR may not have the force of a binding treaty,[121] its Article 19 is the global source of the human right of freedom of expression and the press. It has been replicated as an enforceable human right in the ICCPR,[122] regional human rights instruments,[123] and national constitutions.[124]” Leesi Ebenezer Mitee, “The Right of Public Access to Legal Information: A Proposal for Its Universal Recognition as a Human Right” (2017) 18(6) German Law Journal 1429, 1455
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[119] See Jamar, supra note 108.
[120] For opinions relating to how it may be derived or construed as a human right, see id. See also Mommers, supra note 107, at 392–97.
[121] Some scholars hold the opinion that the UDHR is binding as customary international law. See generally Hurst Hannum, The Status of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in National and International Law, 25 Ga. J. Int’l & Comp. L. 287 (1995); Jochen von Bernstorff, The Changing Fortunes of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Genesis and Symbolic Dimensions of the Turn to Rights in International Law, 19 EJIL 903 (2008); What is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?, Austl. Hum. Rts. Comm’n, https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/what-universal-declaration-human-rights (last visited July 6, 2017).
[122] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, art. 19, para. 2, Dec. 16, 1966, 999 U.N.T.S. 171.
[123] See, e.g., European Convention on Human Rights art. 10, Nov. 4, 1950, 213 U.N.T.S. 221; African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, art. 9; League of Arab States, Arab Charter on Human Rights, art. 32., May 22, 2004, reprinted in International Human Rights Reports 893 (2005) [hereinafter Arab Charter]. The Arab Charter expressly provides for the right of access to public information, in addition to freedom of opinion and expression.
[124] See, e.g., Bundesverfassung [BV] [Constitution] Apr. 18, 1999, SR 101, art. 16 (Switz.); Constitution of Malta (1964), art. 41; Constitution of Nigeria (1999), § 39.
Dr. Leesi Ebenezer Mitee is an Associate Professor of Law. He holds a multidisciplinary PhD in international human rights law, legal information technology (aspects of legal informatics), indigenous customary law, and indigenous rights and LLM in transborder comparative analysis of free access to public legal information. He is a former legal research national consultant to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on the 1998 PCASED project that provided the juridical foundations for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) 1998 Moratorium which culminated in a regional multilateral treaty: ECOWAS Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons, their Ammunition and other Related Matters 2006. He devised the <.officiallaws) official public legal information generic top-level domain (gTLD) system for easy identification of the reliable versions of the laws published online worldwide; developed the system of nationally networked one-stop official public legal information websites (the NOPLIW system) for the optimal findability and management of online law databases; invented the human rights-based public access-adequate huricompatisation model of ascertainment of indigenous customary law (huricompatisation); formulated the new human rights-advocacy approach (NHRAA) that consists of a set of ten onerous criteria for the formal universal recognition of new human rights; and pioneered the global advocacy of the formal universal recognition of the right of free access to public legal information as a substantive or stand-alone human right in 2017 (https://publiclegalinformation.com). His New Human Right of Free Access to Public Legal Information Book Series consists of 22 (twenty-two) modern academic article-style independent but interconnected chapters of the following four books:
Developments in Human Rights Law and the Proposed Human Right of Free Access to Public Legal Information: The New Human Rights-Advocacy Approach and the Ten Criteria for the Formal Recognition of New Human Rights (Volume 1) — ISBN 9789083108520 (eBook) and 9789083108506 (paperback);
The New Human Rights-Based Huricompatisation Model of Ascertainment of Indigenous Customary Law: Strategies for Adequate Local and Global Public Access (Volume 2) — ISBN 9789083108568 (eBook) and 9789083108544 (paperback);
Innovative Technological Mechanisms for Adequate Web-Based Access to National and Global Public Legal Information (Volume 3) — ISBN 9789083108513 (eBook) and 9789083108582 (paperback); and
A Model Empirical Study of the Current State of Governmental Provision of Free Access to Nigerian Public Legal Information (Volume 4) — ISBN 9789083108551 (eBook) and 9789083108537 (paperback).
The Human Right of Free Access to Public Legal Information Advocacy (HURAPLA) website (https://publiclegalinformation.com) contains details of the availability of these books and valuable legal information resources.
Email: info@koinonialegal.com | Website: https://publiclegalinformation.com