ABSTRACT
In terms of international law there was not much to support a right of access to information, as distinct from the right to freedom of expression, as a human right in 1955. ‘Freedom of Information’ did not become an accepted term for a legal right of access to government information until the US Federal Act of that name in 1966. In 1976 a committee of Justice, the British section of the International Commission of Jurists, rejected the idea of such a general right on the ground that a ‘freedom’ required only a correlative duty on government not to interfere, while a ‘right’ of access would require a correlative duty on the part of government to provide information. The 1946 UN General Assembly Resolution 59(1), which said that ‘Freedom of information is a fundamental human right …’ probably was not meant to include a right of access to government information. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19, which said that ‘Everyone has the right to … seek, receive and impart information ...’ came closer to the idea of legal rights of access to information, although perhaps not intentionally. In Europe, the Council of Europe’s 1950 Convention on Human Rights proclaimed in Article 10 ‘… the right to receive and impart information ...’ Across the Atlantic, the Organization of American States had included in the 1948 American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man the Article IV ‘freedom of investigation’.
