President Yoon Suk-yeol Proposes Establishing an International Organization for Discussing Digital Norms

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 22nd that President Yoon Seok-yeol attended the 'Paris Digital Vision Forum' held at Sorbonne University in Paris, France, on the 21st (local time). At this event, President Yoon emphasized the need to establish digital ethics standards and stated, "I propose the establishment of an international organization for discussions on digital norms."

President Yoon said, "The basic principles of digital ethics standards should be concretely applied to and serve as criteria for our digital economic and social activities," presenting a specific direction for digital norms to protect universal human values such as freedom, equality, human rights, and human dignity.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

This forum was held in Paris, the heart of Europe, to spread the President's digital policy agenda, which has continued since last year's 'New York Initiative' announcement, through the B20 Summit (Indonesia), the Davos Forum (Switzerland), and a speech at Harvard University (USA). Especially in the current situation where global discussions on digital norms are intensifying due to recent advancements like ChatGPT, key officials from Sorbonne University and leading European scholars participated to discuss the specific direction of digital norms and plans for global cooperation and solidarity.

At the roundtable, major participants expressed support for President Yoon Seok-yeol's keynote speech and showed agreement on the direction of digital norms. They also offered suggestions on digital norms from a humanities and philosophical perspective on the digital future and shared various opinions on global solidarity measures to pursue sustainable digital innovation. The forum included young philosopher Professor Markus Gabriel from the University of Bonn, Germany, Professor Raja Chatila from Sorbonne University, and writer Bernard Werber.

The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to prepare a 'Digital Bill of Rights' containing the basic direction of digital norms by September, reflecting the opinions and discussions presented at the forum. As a follow-up to this forum, the ministry will participate in discussions on the UN Global Digital Compact (GDC) and promote the establishment of a global discussion body for digital norms in connection with international organizations.

Minister Lee Jong-ho of the Ministry of Science and ICT said, "If last year's New York Initiative emphasized the importance of establishing digital norms, this forum was an opportunity to share the specific direction of digital norms and discuss them with scholars from various fields such as philosophy and thinkers."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.