Internet freedom and development – Sweden’s foreign policy approach

Sweden has been the outspoken champion of human rights online in Europe and convenes the annual Swedish Internet Forum one of the largest internet policy gatherings in Europe.  Johan, Carl Fredrik and Susi will discuss the challenges facing internet freedom at the moment, the Swedish response to these challenges and their wider impact upon European foreign policy

Johan Hallenborg is the senior internet policy Advisor at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has worked for the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights on human rights capacity building programmes in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Between 2003 and 2008, he worked for the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) before joining the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 2008. His policy portfolio includes Internet related international law, human rights, and governance issues.

Carl Fredrik Wettermark is the internet and development Advisor at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Between 2007 and 2009 he worked with ICT capacity building projects for UNDP and Sida in Rwanda, before joining the Ministry for Enterprise, Energy and Communications in 2009 to work on national and EU information society policy issues. He worked as a security policy analyst at the Swedish Armed Force before joining the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 2012 to focus on Internet freedom and development issues.

Susi Dennison is a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Previously she worked for Amnesty International on human rights in EU Foreign Policy and at the UK Treasury, advising on a range of policy issues, including migration in the run-up to the 2004 wave of accession to the EU. She is the author of several publications for ECFR on human rights questions and within the MENA programme, including The EU, Algeria and the Northern Mali question (2012).

Andrew Puddephatt is Director of Global Partners and Associates, an organization that promotes good governance, democracy and human rights. He chairs the UK domestic organisation CAADA and is Chair of the Danish based organization International Media Support. An expert advisor to UNESCO and UNDP he was awarded an OBE for services to human rights in 2003.