“The right to repair is an excuse”

Carolina Botero is a consultant specialising in issues at the intersection of law and technology. She has been working for 20 years to promote and defend human rights on the internet. She was director of the Karisma Foundation for a decade until 2024, and, among other positions, served on the board of directors of Creative Commons. She currently runs repair workshops in Colombia with school children.

She was interviewed by Xavier Coadic. They spoke about Creative Commons, trade agreements and the right to repair. The full interview can be downloaded at: https://media.apc.org/w/p/hvSrvn6rTr1dYgL8875EiF 

Carolina Botero:

The “right to repair” is a very Northern concept, because really, in our countries, we do what we want in the end. That's why they call us “pirate” countries, right? When you wind up in the US or in Europe, it’s hard to find someone to just repair a dress, even in the big cities, when here everyone repairs dresses. Even if the law does not permit second-hand markets, we have second-hand markets. Sometimes it’s not even a market, it's just a circulation of goods. I've never thrown anything away. If I don't want something anymore, I know someone that will need it. It is just a circular way of living that is different from Europe. So the right to repair is really very much a Northern concept; but this is the way it ended up being called.

We need to find out how the right to repair works here. It is a good starting point, especially to force big corporations on the issues of obsolescence. It's a good institutional point of view. I am working with the state and with schools. They need juridical certainty, which is the same that happened to me with Creative Commons. It was really at the state level that it was useful to force them to allow people to do things, because in our countries, the rule becomes intellectual property and protection, and the state applies it even if the society is much more open.

So when you have a juridical framework that the state attorney can understand and can apply, it's much easier and everybody has juridical certainty. The right to repair appears as a way of doing this, legally. Otherwise, for the institutions it will be very hard. So, for me, the “right to repair” in our context is more of an excuse.

The main idea we're working with in the schools is a cultural change, because the schools prefer new computers, but there are not enough new computers for everyone. It's important to connect with the cultural idea of “You can use and reuse, and why don't you do it?” If the children, if the teachers know how to repair them, they can give them new life and keep them for longer and have them used by more children. It is also our way of developing abilities for children that they will use in the future.