Internet Access as a Human Right and the Justiciability Question in the Post-COVID-19 World

Abstract

The heavy reliance on the Internet during the COVID-19 lockdowns underscored the widening gap between the information-rich and the information-poor. While this digital divide is easily conceived as a problem of the Global South, COVID-19 also exposes the asymmetries among population segments within the Global North. The uneven diffusion of the Internet is strengthened by wider inequalities not limited to social, racial and economic imbalances. This paper decries the lack of normative support(s) for Internet access as a human right under existing international law. Building on existing scholarship, it provides an instrumental-pragmatic defence for Internet access as a new human right. Later, it turns to the problem of justiciability, which may hinder the enforcement of the rights as a specie of economic, social and cultural rights.