Internet Access Rights: A Brief History and Intellectual Origins

Abstract

If there is anything we have learned from recent protest movements around the world, and the heavy-handed government efforts to block, censor, suspend, and manipulate Internet connectivity, it is that access to the Internet, and its content, is anything but certain, especially when governments feel threatened. Despite these hard truths, the notion that people have a "right" to Internet access gained high-profile international recognition last year. In a report to the United Nations General Assembly in early 2011, Frank La Rue, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, held that Internet access should be recognized as a "human right". The finding garnered much international attention and acclaim, but there has been little systematic scholarship exploring the report’s findings and right to Internet access set out therein. Helping fill this gap, this article explores the historical and intellectual origins of the idea of a right to Internet access as set out in the report, while also illustrating its political and legal foundations in international legal documents, humanitarian law, and a broader evolving international political context surrounding communications and the global free flow of information.

Keywords: Internet, Internet access, legal history, human rights, United Nations, freedom of expression, international law, special rapporteur, freedom of information, telecommunications history

JEL Classification: K10, K19, K33, L96