Navigating Human Rights in the Digital Environment: The WTSA

This guide aims to support civil society engagement at the World Telecommunications Standardisation Assembly (WTSA), a critical conference for the development of technical standards which takes place every four years. Its upcoming 2024 meeting (WTSA-24), scheduled to take place in October, has the potential to shape discussions across a range of key Internet Governance (IG) forums and processes. Its outcomes could therefore have wide-ranging impacts on the interoperability and openness of the Internet, as well as human rights. In this tool, we set out:

• What the WTSA is;
• How it relates to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU);
• Why it is significant and what the stakes are for the open and interoperable Internet;
• Pathways to engage as civil society;
• Recommendations for advocacy efforts to support the protection and strengthening of an open and interoperable Internet.