Human rights are the basic rights and freedoms which everyone should have. They apply regardless of where you from, what you believe, how you choose to live your life based on the value of dignity, fairness, equality, respect and independence. They are defined and protected under a system of human rights codified through a range of treaties. The basis is the international bill of rights which includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Right.

Other regional treaties adopted by the Council of Europe are the Organization of American State and the African Union supports this regime and a lot more. The norms and protocol of the internet in large were developed independently of the state. But the human rights norms and laws were designed to be implemented by states. In 2012, governments in the UN Human Right Council agreed that the same human rights that exist offline will apply online. The changes initiated by the digital age do not require new rights for the people instead of existing rights should be respected and strengthened. 

New digital technologies have made state surveillance more comprehensive, invasive and easier to disguise. This gives states more control over the citizens and the internet could also issue censorship. For example, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter etc. now routinely censor contents and search engines use algorithms to determine what you get to see or without any accountability or transparency.

Further, there are also collection and analysis of the huge amount of personal data which can create a significant issue for privacy and data protection. But the rise of the digital environment has complicated things. The early pioneers of the internet imagined cyberspace free from governmental interventions but as cyberspace has expanded into all areas of human life, policy and lawmakers have become increasingly involved in managing it with rules, regulations, strategies and policies on issues ranging from the digital fight to online crime.

Accordingly, it becomes necessary to maintain a balance in the regulatory framework as well as the security system. The term law regulations, policies and strategies seem to be similar but what makes them different is their enforcement power. Policies and strategies are conceptual, a policy sets goals while a strategy outlines the steps required to achieve them. Noncompliance of them does not incur any penalty. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) countries around the world now possess cybersecurity strategies where AU Cybersecurity strategy is an example of this kind at the international level.

Policies and strategies can lead to the adoption of laws and regulations that establishes the system of rules which prescribe or forbid behaviour, actions or proceedings that can be enforced with a penalty. Laws and regulations are made at both the national and international level. At the national level laws are adopted by the legislature, regulations follow laws and establish procedures on how to comply with laws.

Wherein specific treaties among the countries establish laws at the international level. Although global cybersecurity doesn’t exist, there are various regional frameworks on a relevant aspect of cyber policy. For example, frameworks like the EU Network and Information Security Directive and the African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection rules that have to be adopted later in national laws. 

Policymaking typically brings in actors from across a range of groups including government business and civil society and goes through five stages- issue identification, problem-solving, drafting, implementation and evaluation. Human rights defenders can get involved in any of these five stages. Law-making is typically flexible and less opened to other stakeholders than policymaking.

Depending on the country the national laws can be proposed either by the legislative or executive organs of the government. At the international level, both laws and treaties are developed in a range of intergovernmental and multi stakeholder’s forums. Depending on the nature of the forum the processes can produce recommendations, conclusions, standard, binding and non-binding treaties.

In 2014, ICANN Cross Community Working Group was tasked with developing a mechanism to ensure accountability during its transition away from US oversight. Human rights issues were not made a needy part of the process. But few members of the working groups spoke up in favour of human rights and in the end, a special provision in the ICAAN’s bylaws was created requiring ICANN to respect human rights in future policy making.

The HIPCAR project is an interesting example of a policy and law-making hybrid combining both regional and national processes. The project was led by the International Telecommunication Union, the Caribbean Community Secretariat and the Caribbean Telecommunication Union and brought in different stakeholders’ groups to draft guidelines and model legislation aimed at harmonizing cyber-related policies and legislation in the region.

As a result of this approach, human rights consideration were included and discussed at every stage of the process and guidelines provided the basis for the model legislative text giving human rights defenders new tool to push for rights in policies and laws at the national levels.

Digital technologies and the internet are governed by a complex array of government bodies, treaties and standards which provides the basis for the discussion around protection and respect of human rights. They include the technical bodies like the Internet Engineering Task Force or ICANN which determines codes and protocols, International Telecommunication Union which sets standards for internet technology infrastructure.

Along with these includes certain trade treaties and agreements which affect the experience of the users in the web. Such as the Intellectual Property Organization which sets rules on copyrights, normative standards produced by an organization like Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) or the Council of Europe. On top of these, the UN has established a process to look at the implications of the digital age for society called the World Summit on the Information Society. This process intern led to the establishment of the Internet Governance Forum and Annual Global Forum to discuss the entire range of internet policy issues.

Further, there are certain ad hoc bodies like the government-led Freedom Online Coalition and various civil society coalitions and network actively promoting human life online.it requires long term commitment and voice across all these forums.

Some of the real-life examples of the digital age affecting human rights included:

BRAZIL

In 2014, Brazil passed its internet bill of rights Marco Civil Da internet into law. It is a unique success story both in bringing in legislation up to the speed with the digital age and for an inclusive way it is developed. Only a year later cracks began to appear notably with the judgement passed in demand to ban WhatsApp in Brazil for 48 hours. Fast forward to 2016 the Brazilian Parliament has tabled an amendment to the Marco Civil Da.

The bill introduced a new interpretation of defamation undermining the freedom of expression. The Marco Civil remains one of the best crafted and democratically debated expressions of rights online to acquire the force of law in the world. Only with continued attention and commitment from human rights defenders will it be possible to maintain and build on success like the Marco Civil.

IRAN 

When the internet was introduced in Iran users saw its easy way to get around Iran’s press laws. Today two-thirds of the Iranian population are internet users and activists rely largely on the digital platform with the outside world to share stories of their state repression. In response, direct censorship and control of digital communication have been set up to restrict internet freedom. It is estimated that half of the popular websites and bloggers, online activists and technical staff can face jail terms, harassment and abuse. Iran is now developing an internal internet which blocks email services, inhibits encryption and bans foreign security software. The exercise of human rights depends on access to the internet and denial of the same violates human rights.  There is also much work to be done to ensure cyber policymaking open and inclusive but there are undoubted opportunities. The internet is after all a young technology with few established experts in the field. Human rights defenders play a crucial role in deciding its future by fighting for a cyber policy which respects and protects human rights.