Morning of the Fifth Freedom (to the Issue of Improving Legal Regime of the Freedom of Information and Knowledge as Values and Drivers of Development)

Abstract

The article shows that the drivers for integration development of Europe in the 20th century were four fundamental economic freedoms of the movement of goods, people, capital and services. In the EU modern global information society, this list of the fundamental political and economic freedoms of previous stages of historical and integration development got the fifth freedom, i.e. the free movement of knowledge. In this regard, the author suggests and motivates the necessity to develop a relevant information law doctrinal and legislative novations to meet the challenge of global information society. In particular, the author suggests that academics, professionals and officials involved in creating the starting normative legal base of practical activity of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) which launches January 1 2015 in Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan should consider the problem of eliminating obstacles in spreading information and knowledge within the EEU. The author outlines the majour challenges due to the development of the fifth freedom and makes up some solutions. In particular, an attempt has been made to specify the content of majour parameters of the current regulatory influence on the processes of exploring one of the main subjects of the fifth freedom i.e. libraries and the electronic format of its catalogues and the ways to improve the public access to them. Thus, it is crucial to realize the importance and subtlety of these problems and seek to solve them by making a relevant balance between necessary and sufficient free movement of information and knowledge and a relevant protection of other rights and legal interests of persons, society and state. Appropriate to the time and society solution will be required for the EEU and its member states to become competitive in the 21st century, i.e. the century of information and knowledge.