Jeff - I'm going to give you edits on the paper as you wrote it, and then write my own version at the end. Let me know if you have any questions! Nate

Should we recognize internet access a fundamental right?

It is increasingly clear that the internet is becoming indispensable to those who use it. A recent survey conducted by the BBC found that a nearly eighty percent of individuals, from first world to developing nations, believe that internet access should be a fundamental right. Writer and digital rights activist Cory Doctorow sees the dependence of the homeless on internet access and the increase in quality of life it brings, to make the bold prediction that within five years, the United Nations will hold a convention to enshrine network access as a human right.

The proposition is admittedly forward-looking on its face. The importance of the internet seems low in comparison to fundamental rights recognized in documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example, the right to life, to be free from torture, and to have equal protection under the law. There are problems in providing adequate food, clean water, or even maintaining a basic level of security. So why even consider internet access as a fundamental right?

However, the myriad other problems in the world need not lower our aspirations. To declare internet access a right would bring benefits to individuals living both in developing and first world countries. The value of the internet is clear, but beyond that, there is inherent value in declaring the internet as a right. I think this sentence is a bit repetitive. In the previous sentence you said that making the internet a right would bring benefits, so it's already clear that you think doing so would have value.

Fundamental Right as a Creed

Our modern conceptions of human rights come from natural law - liberties grounded in cultural notions norms and morality. They can be thought of as the set of individual liberties retained in a Hobbesian social contract. While human rights are generally viewed as universal, legal realist interpretations see them enshrined in positive law because of a strong political consensus. They are a social institution, and the strongest of Thurman Arnold’s creeds that is both normative and descriptive of cultural values.

Creeds contradict each other and change over time; rights themselves are no different. The right to be free from slavery is an instructive example. The ancient Greeks and Romans did not recognize a right to be free from slavery. Even the United States, a nation founded on the declaration that all individuals have a right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” did not abolish slavery until the Civil War.

That the rights that we take for granted today are not guaranteed may be unsettling; however, awareness of this fact also comes with recognition of the opportunity to advocate rights in the world that we want to see. While it may be unsettling that rights we currently take for granted are not guaranteed, by embracing this fact we can advocate for firmer commitments to their enforcement and to the enforcement of other necessary rights. (I think this makes the sentence a little more readable.) Access to internet can be that type of right. Although I know what you're getting at, your preceding sentence makes me a bit unsure of the "type of right" that access to internet can be. You're saying that it should be a newly recognized right, but that doesn't come out too clearly from the preceding sentence. A transition sentence would clear it up. Declaring a right may not guarantee it, after all, de facto slavery arguably still exists today in the form of economic oppression and the prison system. But these declarations of creed often allow the vague right declared to be elaborated into something more concrete, perhaps with binding legal force.

De facto slavery does exist, but real slavery still exists as well. It will make your point (merely declaring a right doesn't ensure) much more powerful if you refer to the existence of actual slavery instead of a de facto version.

Benefits of Internet Access Rights

In 2009, France’s Constitutional Council ruled that access to the internet is a fundamental right in striking when it struck down a law allowing the government to deny users internet access to illegal downloaders before they are were proven guilty in court. The ruling itself based the right to internet access under Article 11 of the French Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789, which stated that “the free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious rights of man”. To regard internet access as a right has broad implications, inevitably linking it with the notions of freedom, equality, and access associated with other commonly known rights. It lends support to viewing the internet as a vital public infrastructure, and prioritizes making it widely and cheaply available to users while guaranteeing their freedoms.

Viewing internet access as a right also makes it more politically amenable to regulation. A prescient regulatory scheme can improve internet access, as is seen in France. While the country used to lag behind the developed world in the cost and speed of internet service, changes to regulations in 2001 encouraging competition among internet providers have improved internet access dramatically. Recent studies show that the average French internet user gets 4 times the connection speed of American users, at a fraction of the price. Open access policies in the United States can benefit the price and quality of internet access in a similar way. Recognizing the internet as a fundamental right, even if not in a legal sense, can provide support for similar regulations that have been proposed to encourage competition among internet services providers. It can also give persuasive political force to make regulatory changes that prohibit internet service providers from discriminating against certain types of internet traffic. These are all examples of the inherent value in declaring internet access a fundamental right.

I think there may be a problem with claiming that France's improvement of internet service is related to the Constitutional Council's declaration. The changes to regulations occurred in 2001 and the ruling was in 2009, so it's hard to say that the ruling led to the improved access. Maybe the changes in the regulations were a result of a general movement in France to have internet access declared to be a human right?

I'm also not sure that internet speed has anything to do with internet access being declared a human right. It sucks when you have a slow connection, but that's not really depriving you of the ability to use the internet. Price, however, is a very interesting issue that I think you should explore more in depth. It raises some very intriguing issues about the Digital Divide and the correlation between socioeconomic class and internet access within a single country. This could be an interesting article to consider.

Guiding Future Development

The language of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares the right to “hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers”. It contains even stronger language than Article 11 of the French Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789, and arguments have been advanced that recognition of internet access should be recognized as a right under Article 19 of the UDHR.

Internet use in the developing world is increasing at a dramatic rate, and declaring internet access a right will serve as an important guide to that growth, in deterring internet and information censorship, as well as encouraging the prioritization of information services infrastructure to bring them to parity with more developed countries. While the internet is a tool for communication, our freedom to information is only as good as the access to sources, and our ability to communicate. Every denial of such tools harms the right to information. The internet is already the best communication tool in terms of access to information and audience reach, and it is becoming increasingly indispensable, as second nature as speaking itself. We should therefore regard it as a fundamental right, vital to the future development of society.

-- By JeffKao - 06 Apr 2010

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