Toward an International Law of the Internet

World has witnessed a new technological revolution in the form of internet especially in the latter half of the last century. Internet is a worldwide system of interconnected computers used for communication purposes. It has enabled millions of people throughout the world to communicate and interact with one another without regard to space and time limitations. Internet, as such, has removed constraints of space, time and distance. It has transcended conventional tangible boundaries. Internet can be said to be a information superhighway, a virtual library, a river or a global village. Internet has always posed a great challenge to law making and law enforcing authorities. Many areas of law, including, intellectual property, constitutional, commercial and criminal law have been particularly affected in varying degrees by the internet. The main problem relating to internet is that there is no central law governing the internet because there’s no central policy-making body that enforces internet decisions. This creates problems on such issues as jurisdiction, criminal law, evidence, privacy and even human rights. However, the most important aspect from public law standpoint has been the efforts at the international level to construct an international regime for global internet governance. Many of the governments whose citizens are connected to internet have expressed concern about the problems the internet has created. They have attempted to take action against the Internet’s intrusion upon the moral and cultural sensibilities of their citizens. However, individual attempts at regulating a worldwide system seem futile. Most attempts to define new rules rely on the disintegrating concept of territory while ignoring the new network and technological borders that transcend national boundaries. Currently, due to lack of national boundaries on the Internet, the only adequate way for countries to assert any control over the internet seems to involve withdrawing or restricting access. In this backdrop, it is being widely felt that a new international agreement must be concluded which recognizes the complexity of networks and allows expansion of the information revolution while avoiding the problems present in the existing legal framework. A possible solution to some of the problems resulting from internet use would be the creation of an international convention for governing this new medium of communication. This paper discusses some of the problems inherent to the Internet and analyses current international legal norms that apply to the internet. It enumerates certain set of principles and norms that could provide the foundation for the new Internet governance regime. It also opines that best way forward would be to conclude a framework convention as an appropriate institutional mechanism for advancing such a regime in the initial stage of its formation.

International Communication Gazette, 2018

This article, conceived as a mainly empirically based contribution, analyses a discursive context composed of 58 documents proclaiming Internet-related human rights drafted and launched by different actors between 1997 and 2015. The article hypothesises that a discourse on Internet-related human rights is being shaped, autonomous from the broader discourse on Internet governance. Therefore, differently from other scholarly works, it does not focus on the many initiatives aimed at defining principles for the governance of the Internet but only on those documents that specifically aim to proclaim Internet-related rights and freedoms. The article, first, analyses the findings of a software-enabled content analysis aimed at (1) identifying the key issues that dominate the discourse, (2) assessing the evolution of the discourse in the last two decades and (3) identifying the thematic priorities of different types of drafting entities. Second, it discusses possible research, policy and le...

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2015

In pursuance of Article 19 of UNDR, 1948, which talks about freedom of opinion and expression through any media and regardless of frontiers, Internet in 21st century has become one of the needs of the people round the globe as it is now the most prominent medium of communication, access to various information and mode spreading one’s word to all. Although the UN Human Rights Council has increasingly recognized that offline rights, such as the right to free speech and the right to peaceful assembly, should apply online as well, human rights law does not include explicit protections for online expression and association. So, the question that will be discussed here is “Should Internet freedom be configured as a human right?”

Internet was perhaps originally designed to be an open communications medium. However, in reality, governments have started to increase their control over cyberspace. Governments the whole world over have demonstrated an increasing willingness to intervene with users' communications on the Internet. Clear recognition of the right to access the Internet can raise awareness at the international level of the illegality of many limitations imposed on connection and online content. It would serve as a useful tool for citizens in relation with State authorities to challenge their government on grounds of displaying unlawful conduct and adopting policy decisions.

2011

Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) is an annual report focusing on issues affecting information societies around the world. GISWatch 2011 looked at internet rights and democratisation, with a focus on freedom of expression and association online. This Special Edition picks up where GISWatch 2011 left off, analysing more than 60 country and thematic reports in order to better reveal and build understanding of the broad range of practical actions and strategies that activists are developing. Five clear themes emerge. The first is a strong emphasis on the need for collaborative networking, online and offline, to build multi-stakeholder engagement that can contribute to protection of internet-related human rights. Key ingredients include building a collaborative network structure, effective engagement with internet rights issues, network diversity, open network infrastructure, clear roles and responsibilities, and connection to offline mobilisation. Connected to this theme is the finding that although the internet is increasingly used as a space for dialogue and debate, democratic participation has not yet been fully realised and many groups remain marginalised both offline and online. There is a need to link online and offline democratic networks to build more meaningful and effective participation and to generate better internet-related public policy. A third theme is that advocacy efforts are most effective when based on robust evidence and research, but that there are research and information gaps in many areas, which may hinder activists’ advocacy campaigns and drive the need for innovative awareness-raising strategies. The continuing emergence and evolution of threats to internet freedoms is a major theme from the 2011 GISWatch reports, particularly around intellectual property laws, content filtering, cyber crime laws and anonymity. Strategies to resist these threats vary widely, but share a common element of being grounded in human rights and the use of rights to fight for wider social justice issues such as the need for the rule of law, affordable quality internet access, and freedom of expression. New forms of resistance are also emerging – for example, developing strategies for secure online communication to protect freedom of expression and freedom of association, including anonymity, particularly for women’s human rights defenders. The fifth theme that arose out of the 2011 GISWatch reports was that in many countries, internet rights advocates have clear, positive policy programmes. They seek to advance their objectives through concrete proposals in national and global policy spaces and through a mix of both online and offline strategies and actions. The policy proposals developed by local internet rights advocates are shaped by social, economic, environmental, political and other factors, but share commonalities. These include an emphasis on multi-stakeholder internet policy-making processes; coherence; a balanced approach to internet policy that responds to national contexts while also linking to global policy issues; and an emphasis on innovation in remedies for internet rights violations. The GISWatch 2011 reports highlighted a wide array of internet rights issues. We hope that this Special Edition will assist activists, civil society groups, human rights defenders, women’s human rights defenders and others, as well as the donors who fund them, to better understand the most effective strategies for practical resistance to threats to internet freedoms and the steps being taken to develop a positive internet rights and public policy agenda.

Australian Journal of International Affairs, 2013

Internet freedom is rapidly becoming understood as a normative framework for how the Internet should function and be used globally. Recently declared a human right by the United Nations, it also forms a central pillar of the USA’s 21st Century Statecraft foreign policy doctrine. This article argues that although there is a clear human rights agenda present in this policy,there is also a power element which is much less discussed or acknowledged in the vast literature on Internet freedom. Through an exploration of both a short history and some important lessons learned about Internet freedom,this article demonstrates how the US Department of State has adapted to the information age in such a way as to harness individual agency (reconceptualised in policy terms as ‘civilian power’) for the promotion of state power. Although this is by no means as stable or reliable as some more conventional mechanisms, it is an expression of power that meets with few challenges to its legitimacy.

2011

Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) is an annual report focusing on issues affecting information societies around the world. GISWatch 2011 looked at internet rights and democratisation, with a focus on freedom of expression and association online. This Special Edition picks up where GISWatch 2011 left off, analysing more than 60 country and thematic reports in order to better reveal and build understanding of the broad range of practical actions and strategies that activists are developing. Five clear themes emerge. The first is a strong emphasis on the need for collaborative networking, online and offline, to build multi-stakeholder engagement that can contribute to protection of internet-related human rights. Key ingredients include building a collaborative network structure, effective engagement with internet rights issues, network diversity, open network infrastructure, clear roles and responsibilities, and connection to offline mobilisation. Connected to this theme is the finding that although the internet is increasingly used as a space for dialogue and debate, democratic participation has not yet been fully realised and many groups remain marginalised both offline and online. There is a need to link online and offline democratic networks to build more meaningful and effective participation and to generate better internet-related public policy. A third theme is that advocacy efforts are most effective when based on robust evidence and research, but that there are research and information gaps in many areas, which may hinder activists’ advocacy campaigns and drive the need for innovative awareness-raising strategies. The continuing emergence and evolution of threats to internet freedoms is a major theme from the 2011 GISWatch reports, particularly around intellectual property laws, content filtering, cyber crime laws and anonymity. Strategies to resist these threats vary widely, but share a common element of being grounded in human rights and the use of rights to fight for wider social justice issues such as the need for the rule of law, affordable quality internet access, and freedom of expression. New forms of resistance are also emerging – for example, developing strategies for secure online communication to protect freedom of expression and freedom of association, including anonymity, particularly for women’s human rights defenders. The fifth theme that arose out of the 2011 GISWatch reports was that in many countries, internet rights advocates have clear, positive policy programmes. They seek to advance their objectives through concrete proposals in national and global policy spaces and through a mix of both online and offline strategies and actions. The policy proposals developed by local internet rights advocates are shaped by social, economic, environmental, political and other factors, but share commonalities. These include an emphasis on multi-stakeholder internet policy-making processes; coherence; a balanced approach to internet policy that responds to national contexts while also linking to global policy issues; and an emphasis on innovation in remedies for internet rights violations. The GISWatch 2011 reports highlighted a wide array of internet rights issues. We hope that this Special Edition will assist activists, civil society groups, human rights defenders, women’s human rights defenders and others, as well as the donors who fund them, to better understand the most effective strategies for practical resistance to threats to internet freedoms and the steps being taken to develop a positive internet rights and public policy agenda.

Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law Online, 2006

et seq. (562) (stating that "[t]he argument that technological changes occurring today require the death of the state and its regulatory function proves too much").

The US philosopher Alan Gewirth's concept 'community of rights' is explored in this article, in the context of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) debates. These debates are dominated by concerns about establishing human rights as the foundation of Internet governance policies. The author's argument is that the IGF debates demonstrate how a global community of rights is taking shape.