Over the weekend of 8th and 9th January 2022, Pirate Party Australia sent a delegation from the Foreign and International Relations Committee (FIRC) to observe the General Assembly of Pirate Parties International (PPI)[1]. With excitement and pride, we observed fourteen member parties convene to hear updates from the Pirate movement around the world and carry out half-board elections[2].

From the report of the chair of PPI, Bailey Lamon (Canada), we heard that the PPI submitted a quadrennial report to the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) outlining the work that the PPI has been doing to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One of the major areas has been to advocate for expanding internet access to everyone to provide equality of communications and access to information. This follows on from Vice Chair Gregory Engels’s (Germany) statement delivered to the ECOSOC’s Commission for Social Development in January 2020 advocating for increased access to crowdsourcing, apps and internet enabled technology to better address homelessness[3].

The PPI also had a booth at the Internet Governance Forum 2021 in Katowice, Poland from 6th to 10th December where Gregory Engels held a lightning talk on the European Citizen’s Initiative to legalise file sharing in Europe[4]. Vice President of the European Parliament and Czech Pirate Marcel Kolaja also gave a talk on free speech and innovation in social media[5].

And more recently, PPI submitted a statement in preparation for the UN’s Ad Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes to be held on 17th to 28th January 2022. Bailey indicated they would advocate for policy to reduce surveillance and other digital crimes, while empowering individuals with digital tools for privacy[6].

Internally, the PPI accepted the membership of the Pirate Party of Serbia and heard a proposal from Keith Goldstein (Israel) to develop a DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation on the blockchain) to support the PPI’s internal governance. PPI currently accepts Bitcoin donations on the Kraken wallet.

The National Council of Pirate Party Australia endorses the international Pirate movement, and is considering membership status in the PPI. To give your opinion, please reach out to the FIRC chair Jay Stephens via [email protected] or contact the National Council directly via [email protected].

References and further reading

1: https://pp-international.net/2022/01/global-pirates-elected-new-leadership-for-the-coming-two-years/
2: https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPIGeneralAssemblyJAN2022
3: https://pp-international.net/2020/01/pirate-statement-on-homelessness-for-the-united-nations/
4: https://pp-international.net/2021/12/ppi-stand-at-the-internet-governance-forum-dec-6-to-10-in-katowice-poland/
5: https://twitter.com/PiratKolaja/status/1469243185834639363
6: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/cybercrime/adhoccommittee/home