Importance of access to knowledge
Knowledge is the single most important underlying factor in the tremendous development that humankind has achieved to date. As Khan noted:
Knowledge has always been crucial to human development. Since the dawn of humankind, the creation and application of new knowledge, in every sphere of human activities, have contributed to the evolution of societies and economic welfare of people. Knowledge of how to do things, how to communicate and how to work with other people has always been regarded as the most precious ‘wealth’ that humans possess.
Knowledge is a key catalyst for economic development in the modern world. As a 2008 World Bank report noted, ‘A knowledge economy is one that creates, disseminates, and uses knowledge to enhance its growth and development.’ While the term ‘knowledge economy’ is said to have first been used by Peter Drucker in his 1969 book The Age of Discontinuity: The Guidelines to Our Changing Society,u the vital contribution of knowledge to economic development has long been recognised. For example, in the 1950s Robert Solow (who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1987) posited a relationship between knowledge and economic growth, arguing that ‘the vast proportion of gains in productivity in [the] early twentieth-century [United States] could be attributed not to factors related to the use of labour or capital, but to a “residual” that he described as technical change’. This residual ‘came to be
understood as a range of advances in knowledge . . . that made processes of production more efficient’.[1] Solow’s findings were followed by ‘[m]ainstream economists [who] soon began to contend that knowledge is not only important, but increasingly important to economic growth, positing that the world’s most developed economies have been becoming more knowledge intensive’.
In view of its importance for human and economic development, it is not surprising that access to knowledge is increasingly being recognised as a human right. As the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) states:
Access to knowledge is a human right. It is a prerequisite for achieving full human potentials and inclusive development, as it opens the door for education, employment, improved health, social and political participation, and access to justice.
The roots of the contention that access to knowledge is a human right lie in provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1966 (ICE-SCR). In particular, Article 27(1) of the UDHR states:
Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
Likewise, Article 15(1) of the ICESCR states that everyone has a right to ‘take part in cultural life’ and to ‘enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications’. Other instruments in the international human rights field, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989, also provide for a right to information of certain persons.
In broad terms, access to knowledge is required for the effective realisation and enforcement of all human rights. This is because access to knowledge ‘has a claim on our humanity that stands with other basic rights, whether to life, liberty, justice, or respect’ and ‘is closely associated with the ability to defend,
as well as to advocate for other rights’.[2] Simply said, knowledge affects the ways in which individuals exercise their rights and also whether they arc aware of those rights. There is also a close connection between access to knowledge and human rights such as the right to freedom of expression. Access to knowledge is a prerequisite for freedom of expression, since expression is often, if not always, based on the understanding of the available knowledge. Many international human rights instruments like the UDHR and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 (ICCPR) articulate the right to freedom of expression to encapsulate freedom to seek, receive and impart information.
Access to knowledge is closely interrelated with the right to education. The right to education envisages providing students with access to knowledge to facilitate their learning. This includes teaching as well as the provision of educational materials. Helfer and Austin argued that ‘[t]hc provision of [educational materials] is also an integral part of the human right to education’. In particular, they contended:
[T]he human right to education imposes public law obligations on governments, including the provision of free educational materials (particularly
to primary school children). The human right to education must therefore mean something other than the existence of markets for [educational materials], which anticipate that [these] materials will be sold rather than distributed free of charge.[3] This contention is supported by the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989, which requires State Parties to make educational and vocational information ‘available and accessible to children’, with a view to achieving the right of the child to education guaranteed under it.
It is clear that access to knowledge, both in terms of imparting knowledge through teaching and the provision of educational materials, is essential for the realisation of the right to education. Conversely, since education promotes knowledge, a right to education broadens access to knowledge.
- [1] Ibid., 18-19. 2 Ibid., 19 (emphasis added). 3 Denis Waitley, Empires of the Mind: Lessons to Lead and Succeed in a Knowledge-Based World (William Morrow and Company, 1995) 2. 4 See UNDP, ‘Individual Consultant Procurement Notice’ (Procurement Notice, 27 January 2015)
- [2] John Willinsky, The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship (MIT Press, 2006) 143. 2 See Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, art 19; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966, art 19; American Convention on Human Rights 1969, art 13; European Convention on Human Rights 1950, art 10. 3 Julian Jonker, ‘Access to Learning Materials in South Africa: The Convergence of Development and Right-Based Arguments for Access to Knowledge’ in Andrew Rens and Rebecca Kahn (eds), Access to Knowledge in South Africa (Intellectual Property Research Unit, University of Cape Town and Information Society Project at Yale Law School, 2009) 113. 4 Lea Bishop Shaver, ‘Defining and Measuring A2K: A Blueprint for an Index of Access to Knowledge’ (2008) 4(2) I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy 1, 23. 5 Frederick Noronha and Jeremy Malcolm (eds), Access to Knowledge: A Guide for Everyone (Consumers International, 2010) 94. 6 Ibid. 7 Laurence R Helfer and Graeme W Austin, Human Rights and Intellectual Property: Mapping the Global Interface (Cambridge University Press, 2011)318.
- [3] Ibid., 316-317. 2 Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989, art 28(d). 3 Ibid., art 28(3). See also UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 13: The Right to Education (Art 13 of the Covenant), 21st sess. UN Doc E/C.12/1999/10 (8 December 1999). 4 World Bank, Country and Lending Groups
