Global Digital Justice Forum calls for structural reforms, public financing and digital democracy in its WSIS+20 input

The Global Digital Justice Forum has submitted a comprehensive input to the WSIS+20 Stakeholder Consultations, offering detailed recommendations for the Elements Paper that will shape the Zero Draft of the WSIS+20 outcome document. Framed by a structural justice perspective and drawing directly on the realities of the Global South, the forum argues that two decades after the World Summit on the Information Society, the global community is still far from achieving an inclusive, people-centred and development-oriented information society. According to the submission, the WSIS model has not yet delivered on its public-interest promise, with market-driven digitalisation entrenching inequalities and consolidating corporate power across the digital ecosystem.

The document stresses that WSIS achievements must be measured against their contribution to fairness, equality and justice. It recalls the Geneva Declaration’s emphasis on the public domain as essential to an informed, innovative and economically vibrant society, and argues that civil society, social movements and public-interest technologists have played a crucial role in articulating community-driven alternatives to extractive digital models. Yet major systemic challenges persist. The submission identifies three core obstacles that the Zero Draft must address: persistent digital divides, monopolistic control by Big Tech platforms and structural inequality in the global digital economy. It highlights the failures of market-led connectivity approaches, the prohibitive cost of devices and data, linguistic exclusion, and the severe access challenges facing people in conflict and occupied territories. It calls for regulatory reforms that treat spectrum and data as public goods, expansion of public and community-centred access models, public-value-oriented data governance and accountability mechanisms for transnational digital corporations.

Looking ahead, the forum outlines ambitious priorities for realising the WSIS vision. It argues that public financing must be central to future global digital cooperation, including proposals such as a digital development tax on dominant internet companies and the creation of a global taskforce on financing for inclusive digital transformation. On data and AI governance, it calls for international solidarity, development sovereignty, collective rights protections, community stewardship of data commons and mandates for the CSTD to integrate Global Digital Compact tracks into WSIS processes. It emphasises that harms associated with AI systems extend beyond privacy to collective and systemic discrimination, under-representation and exclusion.

The forum also urges the inclusion of additional themes in the Elements Paper: state obligations to rein in their digital corporations and prevent cross-border harms; a dedicated action line on gender equality with mandatory gender impact assessments and measures to address technology-facilitated gender-based violence; and a stronger focus on epistemic rights and democratic information environments. The submission recommends directing UNESCO to advance guarantees for access to reliable information, transparency for AI systems and accountability for media platforms, while encouraging policy support for open, decentralised social-media protocols.

In its paragraph-specific proposals, the forum argues for aligning WSIS and the Global Digital Compact within the framework of international human rights and the Tunis Agenda; ensuring developing countries have improved participation and sovereignty in the digital economy; centring cultural diversity and environmental sustainability; ensuring states do not weaponise digital platforms; strengthening human-rights obligations across the technology lifecycle; restoring the Tunis Agenda language on internet governance; and creating metrics for digital equality and gender-responsive implementation across action lines. It also underscores the need for the OHCHR to establish routine monitoring of internet shutdowns.

Finally, the submission provides detailed recommendations to strengthen WSIS structures. It calls for reinterpretation of WSIS Action Lines to reflect contemporary challenges including digital public goods, media pluralism, AI governance and economic-law reform; stronger national and regional monitoring; closer coordination between the WSIS Forum and the IGF; and renewal of the IGF mandate with dedicated funding to ensure participation from developing countries and marginalised communities. The forum stresses that the IGF must evolve beyond procedural multistakeholderism to meaningfully address power imbalances and provide space for civil-society scrutiny of dominant actors.

The Global Digital Justice Forum concludes by reaffirming its mission to return digital power to all peoples and to advance a just, equitable and sustainable international digital order, rooted in human rights, collective welfare and ecological responsibility.