INTRODUCTION

This book was never intended as a philosophical treatise on the theoretical meaning of law, or a technical history of the Internet. I had intended it to be, mainly, a historical jurisprudential story for those curious about how certain legal standards relating to the Internet and human rights developed in the international human rights system. Yet, as I wrote, another story emerged. My experiences of working with activists, policymakers, human rights defenders and technical experts over more than ten years revealed the power of ordinary people and communities of experts to achieve extraordinary things when they work together. I decided to explore what insights this might offer for the future of human rights in the digital age.

SUMMARY

I have attempted, among other things, to chart the rise of the term ‘human rights online’ from the concept of communication rights, to Internet rights, to human rights online, and human rights in the digital age. Like the development of any new concept, the process has been iterative, owing its progress to those struggling to articulate their changing world in the realities of daily life. To understand the development of human rights online, we began, in Chapter 1, with an examination of the Internet. We saw that, at its core, the Internet operates as a distributed, end-to-end, decentralised network focussed on empowering those at the edges of its architecture with no central point of control. The technical community designed the network and the systems supporting it so that data could travel freely, without discrimination. The Internet was designed to be shared, and the network infrastructure was freely given away. Fundamentally, the Internet still works today because everyone uses the same Protocols, which were developed collaboratively by a diverse, multi-stakeholder community to make it work for everyone.

The international human rights system, on the other hand, operates as a government-centric system in which governments have affirmed that human rights belong to everyone, everywhere; that states have the right to govern; and that governments have related duties to respect, protect and promote the human rights of their citizens.