The Center for Studies on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information (CELE) is an academic center dedicated to the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of expression and access to information. As such, CELE carries out research aimed at enriching the public debate and education, training and reflection activities in this area.
Since its creation in 2009, CELE has developed research, policy papers, and tools for journalists, civil society, government and academic institutions dedicated to the defense and promotion of these rights, especially in Latin America.
We invite you to visit our website.
In 2012, CELE created the Internet Freedom of Expression Initiative (iLEI), which aims to promote the implementation of human rights standards, particularly freedom of expression, on the internet. ILEI works with consultants in different countries developing research and organizing training initiatives. The Regional Legislative Observatory was developed within the framework of iLEI.
We invite you to read our research and publications on the CELE website.
Assumptions and objectives
The hypothesis that gave rise to the creation of the Legislative Observatory on Freedom of Expression proposed that, contrary to what had been happening with the freedom of expression laws in the region, legislative initiatives regarding Internet regulation imposed a more restrictive trend of freedom of expression. expression, potentially affecting the circulation of discourse in Latin America.
During the last two decades, significant progress has been made in the freedom of expression agenda at the regional level and, particularly over the past 5 years, this trend seems threatened, especially as important debates are reopened in the framework of the regulation of Internet.
Given the lack of systematization of complete and comparative information on the subject, in 2017 CELE, with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), created the Legislative Observatory within the framework of the Initiative for Freedom of Expression on the Internet (iLEI ).
The Observatory aims to monitor the impact of the debate around internet regulation on freedom of expression.
In addition, it aims to systematize and facilitate access to laws and bills that affect freedom of expression at the regional level; monitor legislative developments over time to detect (when possible) trends; provide an independent evaluation of the laws and bills under the standards and the test proposed by the Inter-American Human Rights System.
Methodology
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DOCUMENTARY ANALYSIS
Information was collected on laws and bills of recent years that could affect in some way freedom of expression both online and offline.
The collected laws date from 1997 onwards (with the exception of some specific cases) and, in the case of the bills, since 2012. The experts gathered information on both the legislative process of each law and project and on other relevant aspects for the circulation of the discourse and they put it in a template to carry out the specific analysis (the templates are available on this website).
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DATA REGISTER
The analysis included both qualitative and quantitative aspects.
To do this, CELE developed, in collaboration with experts in the field, a structure for the database, setting the criteria to be analyzed, the data to be registered for each of the laws and the procedure.
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RESULTS OF THE INVESTIGATION
The research resulted in 4 articles from each of the countries that make up the Observatory and one article that highlights the regional analysis.
Both the Argentine and regional articles were in charge of CELE. We sought to visualize the information to bring it closer to users, which include students, activists, journalists and academics, among others.
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GEOGRAPHICAL SCOPE
The analyzed countries were selected according to their representativeness at the regional level.
In 2017, the analysis was focused on Argentina, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico. While in 2018 Chile, Guatemala, Colombia and Paraguay were included.