International Freedom of Information Law

In this section you will find international or supra-national FOI legislation.

In most EU countries (only 10 out of 27 Member States do not have freedom of information defined as a constitutional human right) there is no doubt that FOI is recognized as a constitutional human right. Supra-national recognition of the right has lagged behind national recognition, but with a clear decision from the Inter-American Court of Human rights in 2006 and decisions from the European Court of Human Rights in 2009, as well as the world’s first binding treaty on the right adopted by the Council of Europe (which is not put into force yet), it is now clear that there is a right of access to information. In the jurisprudence of international courts FOI has been linked to the right of freedom of expression, as expressed in the ECHR in Article 10 and in American Convention on Human Rights in Article 13. (author of the text: Nataša Pirc Musar)