Position Paper of Switzerland, Human Rights

Committee: Human Rights

Official name: Swiss Confederation

Capital: Berna

President: Alain Berset

Form of government:  Federal semi-direct democracy under multi-party parliamentarydirectorial republic                                                                                       Official languages: German, French, Italian and romanche                                                       Population: 8,524,642

Surface: 41290 sq. km (2016), E 8 0´0´´, N 47 0´0´´

Coin: Franco Suizo

PIB: 658,8 thousands of millions

Religions: Roman Catholic (27%), Christian (38%), Muslim (5%), Buddhist (0.5), Jewish (0.3), others (21.4%)

Member of the UN since: August 1, 2002

Delegates name: Cassandra Nava Osako

HISTORY: Originally inhabited by the Helvetians, or Helvetica Celts, the territory comprising modern Switzerland came under Roman rule during the Gallic wars in the 1st century BC and remained a Roman province until the 4th century AD. Under Roman influence, the population reached a high level of civilization and enjoyed a flourishing commerce. Important cities, such as Geneva, Basel, and Zurich, were linked by military roads that also served as trade arteries between Rome and the northern tribes. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Switzerland was invaded by Germanic tribes from the north and west. Some tribes, such as the Aleman in central and northeastern Switzerland, and the Burundians, who ruled western Switzerland, settled there. Switzerland's National Day. Between 1315 and 1388 the Swiss Confederates inflicted three crushing defeats on the Habsburgs, whose aspiration to regional dominion clashed with Swiss self-determination. During that period, five other localities (cantons in modern-day parlance) joined the original three in the Swiss Confederation. Buoyed by their feats, the Swiss Confederates continuously expanded their borders by military means and gained formal independence from the Holy Roman Empire in 1499. Routed by the French and Venetians near Milan in 1515, they renounced expansionist policies. By then the Swiss Confederation had become a union of 13 localities with a regularly convening diet administering the subject territories. Swiss mercenaries continued for centuries to serve in other armies; the Swiss Guard of the Pope is a vestige of this tradition. The Reformation led to a division between the Protestant followers of Zwingli and Calvin in the German and French parts of the country respectively, and the Catholics. Despite two centuries of civil strife, the common interest in the joint subject territories kept the Swiss Confederation from falling apart. The traffic in mercenaries as well as the alienation between the predominantly Protestant Swiss and their Catholic neighbors kept the Swiss Confederation out of the wars of the European powers, which formally recognized Swiss neutrality in the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. The Swiss remained neutral during the War of the First Coalition against revolutionary France, but Napoleon, nonetheless, invaded and annexed much of the country in 1797-98, replacing the loose confederation with a centrally governed unitary state. The Congress of Vienna in 1815 re-established the old confederation of sovereign states and enshrined Switzerland's status of permanent armed neutrality in international law. In 1848, after a brief civil war between Protestant liberals seeking a centralized national state and Catholic conservatives clinging on to the old order, the majority of Swiss Cantons opted for a Federal State, modeled in part on the U.S. Constitution. The Swiss Constitution established a range of civic liberties and made far-reaching provisions to maintain cantonal autonomy to placate the vanquished Catholic minority. The Swiss amended their Constitution extensively in 1874, establishing federal responsibility for defense, trade, and legal matters, as well as introducing direct democracy by popular referendum. To this day, cantonal autonomy and referendum democracy remain trademarks of the Swiss polity. Switzerland industrialized rapidly during the 19th century and by 1850 had become the second most industrialized country in Europe after Great Britain. During World War I serious tension developed between the German, French, and Italian-speaking parts of the country, and Switzerland came close to violating its neutrality but managed to stay out of hostilities. Switzerland time later joined the Breton Woods institutions in 1992 and finally became a member of the United Nations in 2002. 

Position: IT IS a generally admitted fact that Switzerland, because of its central geographical situation, the character of its political institutions, the nature and composition of its people, has come to exercise upon the destinies of Europe an influence which is very great in comparison with its size and population.

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Position paper

Digital Rights refers to the access and control of digital information; human rights in the internet era. Emphasizing, they are rights to online privacy and freedom of expression. The Internet has become an indispensable tool for the realization of a range of human rights, and for accelerating economic development. Recalling what Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says “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”. The rights to privacy and freedom of expression are becoming more important. Fully alarmed, there are new examples every day of how action taken on the internet play a role in undermining human rights — whether through a prime minister banning Twitter in Turkey; a death sentence for a posting on Facebook in Iran; bulk electronic surveillance of American citizens by the NSA; a court ruling on the right to be forgotten in Google searches in Europe; or a requirement that Internet users supply real names to service providers in China. Digital rights and a free and open Internet need strong advocates and cooperative action. All sorts of groups and organizations advocate for digital rights, there have been many assumptions referent to if the government or other institutions can be able to control all of our “private” information that we put on our online profiles.  When everything you say or do can be tracked and intercepted, it has a chilling effect on what you feel free to say, where you feel free to go, and with whom you choose to meet. The UN Human Rights Council agreed in a resolution that the "same rights that people have offline must also be protected online.” We all have the right to privacy, if we click on a website deciding that we want all of our information to be hidden from everyone else, it should be that way.

Recognizing the rapid pace of technological development enables individuals all over the world to use new information and communications technologies and at the same time enhances the capacity of governments, companies and individuals to undertake surveillance, interception and data collection, which may violate or abuse human rights, in particular the right to privacy, as set out in article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and is therefore an issue of increasing concern, countries around the world have come together on many occasions to discuss this issue, therefore they pull though many resolutions, such as resolution 68/167 given by the United Nations General Assembly in December of 2013. Confident that it expressed deep concern at the negative impact that surveillance and interception of communications may have on human rights. The General Assembly affirmed that the rights held by people offline must also be protected online, and it called upon all States to respect and protect the right to privacy in digital communication. As General Assembly resolution 68/167 recalled, international human rights law provides the universal framework against which any interference in individual privacy rights must be assessed.

Switzerland’s digital privacy and freedom of speech have not been a big problem for the authorities, guided by their organization within this problem having it under control is their best quality. Aware of all the worldwide problems with digital rights we can say not every country is in favor about the bill of rights (digital rights), keeping in mind Switzerland is in complete favor with this right affirming all they want is respect and trust, although this country is in a very good position in the use of information, apps, communications technology, telecommunications infrastructure etc. Observing Switzerland way of preventing this kind of issues is really good, convinced by all the protection and privacy in their Medias and security since they’ve done tons of protection acts for example getting more into freedom of speech, it is generally accepted in Switzerland and has a high standard of recognition for its acceptance, as well as the racism or anti- Semitic language is forbidden, the locals in Switzerland’s approve all of this protection properly and are always expecting a good treatments.

Recalling not every country is in favor of all the privacy and freedom, there is some countries that do need it, having studied some of the top countries, for example China and the United States do need digital rights, DR authorizes many stuff that could be important and everyone should know, China and USA are big countries with lots of people that have technology devices and not everyone respects each other’s privacy and freedom, expecting this situation to be fixed slowly it can’t get fixed by its own which is why there is certain rights that help us protect our countries with its privacy and freedom, and this not only goes to China and USA, it happens all around the world with the countries that do not establish the rules. In the case of some countries privacy is their main problem which shouldn’t be because privacy is a fundamental right; on the other hand Switzerland makes people feel safe with privacy and freedom which every country should do. A lot of what happens with problems (persona, a fight, etc.) they immediately transmit to the media, that is a big example of how someone can invade your privacy.

Fully believing the Swiss Politian’s point of view of this problem is to accept the freedom of speech and to provide any other problem. Having considered all the events that have been happening on the digital theme for example, on November 21 (last year), the organization digitalswitzerlandexternal link showcased to people across the country what digitalization has to offer with its first Swiss Digital Day event, which helps us keep up with the information of our own security, In this event, even politics were involved such as: The Political Scientist Stefan Klauser, the ex Swiss president Doris Leuthard etc. Most of all Switzerland is a very good position country, as a solution for this problem they are always working with companies, organizations etc. to each time more keep fulfilling and calming all the citizens, as well as the great protection they have on their Medias. What mostly draws the attention to the privacy and freedom problem is that the general reason why this is caused is because of no respect, and that is what Switzerland solemnly affirms they will improve.

Bibliography APA: author do not apply in this web pages since they are mostly companies.

SWI, (2017),”Progress toward a digital Switzerland is advancing but slowly”, SWITZERLAND, https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/virtual-reality-_progress-toward-a--digital-switzerland--is-advancing--but-slowly/43701858

IVPN (unknown), “privacy laws in Switzerland”, SWITZERLAND https://www.ivpn.net/internet-privacy-laws-in-switzerland

Feder gazetee (2016) “Digital Switzerland”, Switzerland file:///C:/Users/Goyita/Downloads/strategie_digitale_schweiz_EN_Accessible.pdf

EDRI (2018) “Protecting digital freedom” SWITZERLAND https://edri.org/swiss-civil-society-struggles-digital-surveillance-laws/