INTRODUCTION

At the heart of the Internet is an incredible community, and a story of how an extraordinary resource was created and then freely given away. Likewise, at the heart of human rights, there are incredible individuals and communities who have overcome enormous odds to inspire the world. This chapter introduces both. Firstly, it will discuss the Internet, some key technical standards that enable its operation, and some of the important communities who keep the Internet going; then the chapter will give a brief outline of how the international human rights system works, along with a description of the communities who work within it. These two systems have similarities and differences which, as we shall soon see, created tensions – and synergies – as they converged, leading to entirely new ideas such as Internet governance. Within just a few years of its creation, Internet users were challenging fundamental ideas about human rights, and human rights were challenging the very essence of the Internet.

HOW DOES THE INTERNET WORK ?

As individual users, we can happily use the Internet while being entirely unaware of its complex ecosystem. So many of our daily tasks, such as sending and receiving email, reading news, conducting research, chatting with family and friends and watching movies, are done in this way. But to understand our human rights online, it is helpful to know a little of the basics about how the Internet works. There are many resources and guides about the Internet, and I am a lawyer, not a technical expert, so what follows is a simplified outline.

There is no international treaty governing the operation of the Internet; no single law or legal framework, no ‘government’ of the Internet. Instead, a loose community of individuals and groups (the ‘technical community’) operate open and standardised technical protocols which, when adopted, allow the Internet to function. However, the Internet ecosystem is much wider than this community, and encompasses telecommunications networks, network operators, government regulatory policy (such as that on competitive access to broadband), Internet service providers, platform providers (such as YouTube and Facebook), and many other elements.