The first “ask” after we get to the point where we see that we are all connecting in this space is to find out why, and what we can do together; our vision is to form a TechforJustice® Coalition to build the Justice Layer of the Internet, assuring fairness and transparency. The coalition will have many subgroups representing the many forms of stakeholders whom we will need to gather to put to work – they will range from project managers, legal technologists, e-commerce lawyers, dispute resolution lawyers, nonprofit governance experts, front line human rights groups, people suffering from human rights violations, corporations with tech or global footprints ….. there are many ways to slice this and categorize it. It’s best that people self-organize with some direction from us, but not too much.
Create a vehicle which aggregates the pro-bono time of lawyers and other justice professionals world-wide to promote e-commerce in the developing world as a means of fostering legal empowerment of the poor by:
- providing free or low cost legal resources to small and medium size businesses in the developing world to help them start up and access the global marketplace
- developing a resource of e-commerce legal agreements
- harmonizing and strengthening laws affecting e-commerce at both the public and private international law level
- improving user trust and confidence in online transaction through the creation and development of online “Trust Zones” and other mechanisms, and
- developing a means to maintain relationships and avoid conflict arising from online interaction
The best way for this to start, however, is by getting a small group to start working on our projects. The idea is to get the lawyers we’ve met last week who are most interested to meet again in a meeting next week and get them to focus on the legal needs for Questscope, Lens on Life, IBO Zambia and World United in Song: we want them to begin drafting the legal documentation to open e-commerce channels.
