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Delegate from Nagales, Kathleen Faye

Soviet Ukraine

I. Achieving Open, Universal, And Affordable Access to the Internet

Globally, we have seen the internet used as a discussion platform across nations, religions
and beliefs. As we move further into the 21st century, the necessity for Internet will only
strengthen. Shrinking the digital divide with universal broadband access supports community
education, civic engagement and economic stability. A collaborative effort to expand broadband
accessibility will lead to a more educated and engaged society. Expanding citizens’ access to
information encourages engagement in advocacy and problem solving within the community.
Meanwhile, the opposition on achieving open, universal and affordable access on internet argues
that extending connectivity today is costly. In many underserved or unserved markets, high cost
discourages users to adopt available services or providers to introduce offerings.

The partly liberalized Ukranian telecommunications market is not fully developed. Fixed-line
penetration remains low (27.8 percent) and the telephone system requires modernization. State-
owned UkrTelecom is the largest ISP in the country, but it does not decisively control the other
ISP’s. UkrTelecom dominates the fixed-line sector and possesses Ukraine’s primary network,
trunk and zone telecom lines. Alternative telecommunications providers are dependent on leased
lines; because UrkTelecom owns the majority of the infrastructure and many alternative
providers do not have sufficient resources to build their own networks and consequently have to
rely on UrkTelecom’s infrastructure. Although ISP’s have considerably reduced their access
costs and a few providers offer free access during the night, most Ukranian cannot afford to use
the internet. Internet penetration increased to 14.6 percent in 2016. There is a significant urban-
rural digital divide: As of December 2017, 41% of internet users lived in settlements with more
than 50,000 inhabitants. The share of internet users in rural areas is very low. The majority of
users are concentrated in large cities, with Kyiv accounting for nearly 60 percent of internet
users, and the next seven largest cities a further 30 percent of all users. Obstacles impeding
expansion include high access costs, poor infrastructures in the regions, high call rates, and low
levels of gadget ownerships.

Internet has paved way to 2004 Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, despite lacking access to mass
media, supporters of democratic change compensated through skillful use of the internet to
recruit volunteers, raise funds, organize campaigns, report breaking news, and garner the
sympathy of the global democratic community. Ukraine largely acknowledges the linkage
between universal, affordable Internet access and the wellbeing of people worldwide. In fact, at
the national level various efforts have been made to boost internet access at public internet
access places. Pilot projects have also been launched in an effort to improve universal service
supervision in remote areas. Fixed, wireless and satellite technology solutions will all be needed
to account for the range of differences in population density, geography and topology. In
addition governments should enact policies encouraging more providers and more competition
throughout the value chain of providing connectivity that could help drive cost reductions.
Making connectivity more affordable, not less, promote overall economic growth.
 II. Seeking the Adoption of Global Labor Standards

Over the past four decades, a fundamental restructuring of international production has
taken place. Developing countries have been shifting from exporting primary goods and raw
materials to also exporting manufactured goods and intermediate inputs. The expansion of
manufactured exports from the developing world has unleashed new competitive pressures. Not
only are the newly industrializing economies competing with more established industrial powers,
they also compete with each other. In this environment of heightened competition, individual
countries acting alone find it increasingly difficult to sustain social protections that raise factor
prices- most notably wages and other payments to labor. As these trends have become more
pronounced, international concern over fundamental human rights at work, the payment of
poverty wages, and the prevalence of indecent and dangerous working conditions has intensified.

In Ukraine, there exists a problem of protection of classic labor rights of workers. This
problem manifests itself in an insufficient level of regulating labor standards and other associated
legal norms, which envisage employer’s responsibility for infringement of any labor rights and
for employer’s making discriminatory labor regulations. Modification of the national labor law
means fulfillment of the country’s international obligations and realization of the global
conformity of the labor law of Ukraine to the international labor standards, resulting from
ratified and universal conventions of the UNO, ILO, and regional standards of EU. In order to
implement the international norms and principles, Ukraine has to create conditions for the
adoption of domestic law, in particular, to make an accurate legal framework, which determines
the order of legislative execution of the international acts, as well as legal consequences of their
breach. One of the key principles of the system of state regulation of social labor and relations in
Ukraine is transparency for the international impact in the labor standards sphere. Two main
methods of interaction between the national labor law and the international labor standards are as
follows: implementation of international labor acts in the domestic legislation, and adoption of
the renewed domestic labor law with account of the appropriate international acts. Ukraine
hereby promotes the adoption of Global Labor Standards by these following domestic policies:
reformation of labor law and support to reforms in the sphere of social insurance and social
security, development and implementation of employment programs, including those for the
youth, disabled and human trafficking victims, reformation of labor statistics and promoting
formation and raising the efficiency of labor administration. At the international level, the
country is member state of the ILO since 1954 and has ratified 70 ILO International Labor
Standards, of which 61 are in force, including the eight fundamental and four priority
conventions.

Despite the limitations of global labor standards, the potential that such interventions
have for improving the working lives of a significant number of people should not be
underestimated. The development of an appropriate regulatory scheme for enforcing basic
standards of decency could serve as a model for governing multinational economic activities
more generally. Because of these possible contributions, striving to create and effective
framework for global labor standards represents an important policy goal in this era of
internationalized production and consumption.
SOURCES:

A.

The Network Readiness Framework assesses the extent to which different economies benefit
the latest ICT advances based on three indexes: environment, network readiness, and usage.
See World Economic Forum, The Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009,
http://www.weforum.org/pdfgltr/2009/gltr09fullreport.pdf.

J. Goldstein (2007), The Role of Digital Networked Technologies in the Ukranian Orange
Revolution. Berksman Research Publication No. 2007-14, December 2007,
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu

World Dialogue on Regulation for Network Economies, “Ukraine: President Signs

Legislation to Privatise UrkTelecom, January 26, 2007,
http://www.regulateonline.org/content/view/918/79.

Paul Baudde Communication Pty. Ltd., “Ukraine – Key Statistics and Telecommunications
Market,” January 15, 2017
Miniwatts Marketing Group, “Internet World Statistics Ukraine,” 2017,
http://www.internetworldstats.com/europa2.htm
B.
A. Amsden (1997), “International Labor Standards: Hype or Help? Boston review, 20(6)

L. Beneria (2002), “Shifting the risk; new employment patterns, informalization, and
women’s work” International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 15(1):27-53

D. Ehrenberg (1996), “From intention to action: an ILO-GATT/WTO enforcement

regime for international labor rights,” In L. Campa and S. Diamond, eds. Human
Rights, Labor Rights and International Trade, Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press. pp. 163-180

C. Guy (1994) “Labor Standards and International Trade,” in D. Campbell, eds.

International Labor Standards and Economic Interdependence, Geneva: International
Institute for Labor studies (ILO)
International Labor Organization, “About the ILO in Ukraine”, http://www.ilo.org