[governance] Is This An Issue for Internet Governance/Internet Human Rights?

[Roland Perry]

In message 
<CAPcSPKXEAYi0iAm_SCVzDV1HReEpNDpnc7JqYtU8+JGw6AjQow at mail.gmail.com>, at 
12:55:47 on Mon, 25 Jul 2011, Baudouin SCHOMBE 
<baudouin.schombe at gmail.com> writes

>A matter of understanding. Following your argument, it is assumed that 
>application of international instruments such as human rights, a 
>country already has a body of legislation and appropriate legal use of 
>digital technology?

That's an important observation.

Does Internet Governance only apply to those activities which for 
whatever reason their "Digital technology law" has failed to address, or 
all digital technology that has some flavour of the Internet?

If it's the first, who decides if it really has failed, rather than 
succeeded in following policy principles other than those they would 
have preferred?

Roland.

>2011/7/22 Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com>
>
>> On 7/22/11, Roland Perry <roland at internetpolicyagency.com> wrote:
>>
>> > If we aren't careful, then everything we do becomes an Internet
>> > Governance issue (if some aspect of the activity takes place on the
>> > Internet).
>>
>> If we abstain from setting a protective policy, that is an internet
>> policy as well.  It's a style of internet governance: to abstain from
>> public policy in favor of private or corporate rule-setting via
>> contracts, terms of service, market forces, etc.
>>
>> I don't know if Roland Perry would go this far, but the line to be
>> crossed to truly say something is "not an internet governance issue"
>> is to show that either
>>
>> (1) the activity involved doesn't involve the internet or impact the
>> internet, OR
>>
>> (2) the internet activity in question is beyond the legitimate power
>> of any actual or potential governance entity (whether public or
>> corporate), including being beyond any claims for the *reasonable*
>> extension of some existing public or corporate power.
>>
>> The *full* application of presently existing human rights laws would
>> be a good start.  That process of course has started already.
>>
>> Of course, a more general set of legal commands such as human rights
>> laws would arguably benefit in terms of specificity by a treaty that
>> explains those rights in the specific new-ish contest of the internet.
>>  But, in most (if not all) cases, such a specific "new" law would just
>> be a detailed application of pre-existing human rights laws and
>> principles to the area of the internet.  Thus, lawyers and judges
>> would say that rights laws regarding the internet already exist, even
>> if many or all of the specific holdings await argument and application
>> of the human rights laws in appropriate courts with jurisdiction over
>> a particular case.  Provided such a court is limiting itself to
>> application of a general legal right to a new context and not
>> over-reaching (often a debatable line here), such a court is not
>> making  up new law but applying existing law in a newer or somewhat
>> different context.
>>
>> One may note that courts applying principles to new contexts are
>> occasionally accused of being "activist" courts and "making up" the
>> law.  Usually this kind of charge is made by a supporter of corporate
>> rights and corporate governance, who know full well that whenever the
>> government and/or the courts abstain from law-making or ruling in a
>> certain area, the power to rule that particular area thus defaults to
>> corporate or private powers, who make the laws applicable to it via
>> contracts and terms of service, and so forth.
>>
>> Paul Lehto, J.D.
>>
>> --
>> Paul R Lehto, J.D.
>> P.O. Box 1
>> Ishpeming, MI  49849
>> lehto.paul at gmail.com
>> 906-204-4026 (cell)
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>
>

-- 
Roland Perry
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