Interpretation of Public Order and Ethics in free Access to Media Information from the Perspective of International Law

Freedom of access to information is generally recognized under the title of freedom of expression as one of the basic human rights in many global and regional human rights documents. Despite this, respect for the principle of national sovereignty of states requires that restrictions be set on the way of this freedom in the legal frameworks such as maintaining order and public morality. The Islamic Republic of Iran faces two basic obstacles in terms of freedom of access to information; On the one hand, under the pretext of imposing restrictions on objectionable media contents (either immoral or subversive) and violation of freedom of expression, it is attacked by human rights institutions, and on the other hand, its overseas networks such as Press TV with accusations such as "publication of baseless evidence" are banned or limited. Now the question is, what is the concept and interpretation of "public order and ethics" in international law and how can the Islamic Republic of Iran, while answering and defending itself legally in international forums, demand the free publication of its media information? The present research has tried to answer the above questions through the analytical-descriptive method and citing library documents. The results of the investigations show that the concept of order and public morality should be interpreted in the framework of the relativistic approach and in accordance with the customary culture of the countries in order to avoid contradictory standards and procedures in the international law system.