looking relaxed at the Dusit Resort Hua Hin, Thailand, New Year 2006
At the SAFT conference in Stockholm, October 2003, in a serious mood.
looking relaxed at the Dusit Resort Hua Hin, Thailand, New Year 2006
I am Head of the eContent and Safer Internet Unit in the Digital Content and Cognitive Systems Directorate of the Information Society and Media Directorate-General of the European Commission. I have been dealing with the issue of Internet content since mid-1996, when I drafted the Communication on illegal and harmful content in 1996 followed by the Ministerial Declaration of the Bonn Conference on Global Information Networks (the first international conference at a high level dealing with electronic commerce) in 1997. I have been involved with the Safer Internet programme since its inception.
I produce QuickLinks, an electronic newsletter on legal and regulatory issues related to the Information Society as well as developments in market and technology.
After studying law at Oxford University, I was called to the English Bar in 1974, did a year's pupillage, and then went to Germany on a program for young foreign lawyers funded by the DAAD. I then studied law in Paris and joined the staff of the Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce.
In 1981, I became Legal Secretary to the late Lord Mackenzie Stuart, Judge and then President of the European Court of Justice.
I joined the European Commission in 1987. I joined DG XIII, now the Information Society Directorate-General, in 1994. From 1994 until the beginning of 2000, I was secretary of the Legal Advisory Board, composed of independent experts in information law.
European Commission, Information Society
DG
mail: EUFO 1193, L-2920 LUXEMBOURG
phone: +352 4301 32400 Fax: +352
4301 34079
e-mail: richard.swetenham AT ec.europa.eu
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