Global information justice: Rights, responsibilities, and caring connections

THE GOAL OF GLOBAL INFORMATION JUSTICE (GIJ) Is To conserve nature and to preserve humanity through the creative uses of the technologies of information, knowledge, and memory using the practices of rights, responsibilities, and caring connections. This article presents the concept of global information justice and describes it in three different but complementary ways-as an ethical ideal, as an organizing principle for a model for analysis, and as a direction for policy making. First, as an ethical ideal, GIJ has as its aim the use of new technologies to preserve humanity and to conserve the natural world. The analytic model relates key issues-access, ownership, privacy, security and community-to each other and to the goal of GIJ. As an approach to policy making, GIJ is presented as the foundation for policy creation, implementation, and the establishment of normative practices. The concept of global information justice is illustrated with articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948), with the works of international scholars and advisors meeting in the late 1990s (UNESCO INFOEthics Congresses) and their continuing efforts through UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization), the International Center for Information Ethics (ICIE), and other groups. This presentation can only serve as an introduction to global information justice and to the research agenda and policy needs that will arise as the future unfolds.