Subject: Re: [hrpc] draft-tenoever-hrpc-research-02

From: John Curran <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 08:31:48 -0400

Folks - 

A most excellent document - one that is definitely necessary since the properties
cyberspace is sufficiently different from real-world space to make the mapping of 
basic human rights a nontrivial exercise.

Given that the document aims to be "a proposal for the mapping of the relation 
between human rights and technical concepts”, has any consideration been given 
to UNDHR article 8, and how we go about mapping it to technical concepts?

Thanks,
/John

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From: Niels ten Oever <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 16:04:00 +0200

Hi John,

Are you referring to:

Article 8
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national
tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the
constitution or by law.

If so, does this mean that your question could be reformulated as:
'Have you already resolved the Internet and jurisidition problem?'

If this is the case, my answer would be: we're working with human rights
because this is the most universal standard that we've got, exactly to
not go down the rabbit hole of different situations in different
jurisdictions.

Does this help?

Best,

Niels

Niels ten Oever
Head of Digital

Article 19
www.article19.org

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On 05/27/2016 02:31 PM, John Curran wrote:
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From: John Curran <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 10:49:44 -0400

> tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the

Yes.

> 'Have you already resolved the Internet and jurisidition problem?’

No, that is not a correct reformulation of my question.

There are already existing processes in the real world for pursuit of legal
remedies between jurisdictions (e.g. MLAT)…   They may (or may not)
work very well, but either way that’s not our job to resolve.

My question is far simpler:

    What are the technical concepts that need to be considered in
    Internet protocol development so that the basic human right of
    ‘effective remedy’ for violation of their rights can be provided?

When someone is the victim of ransomware, it is quite likely that there is
not going to be a happy outcome to the story.  There are many reasons
for this, including the fact that our law enforcement cooperation processes
were developed decades ago, and presume a very small amount of trans-
border criminal activity - as such, they operate in weeks/months and lack
any potential for operating at Internet speed.

However, the fact that law enforcement has very limited ability to pursue
remedy in cyberspace doesn’t necessary equate to valid reasoning for
precluding meaningful engagement of law enforcement when an innocent
party is robbed via the Internet.  The IETF is quite capable of designing
protocols that make it effectively impossible to pursue effective remedy,
and if it does so, then it is actually inhibiting exercise of basic human rights.

(There is actually some merit in proactively taking a stand that the human
right of effective remedy simply cannot be satisfied on the Internet, i.e.
that the costs and implications for providing for such are too great.  If that
is the case, then it is a fairly important IETF determination for protocol
developers to be aware of…)

> not go down the rabbit hole of different situations in different

There is no reason to consider different jurisdictions, nor is that our job.
However, whether IETF protocols facilitate or obscure information needed
in the determination of the relevant jurisdiction(s) and thus support the
human right of effective remedy/due process is definitely a valid question.

This is simply the question of whether someone’s basic right to be able to
initiating legal recourse is or is not not pre-empted via IETF design decisions
made during protocol development.  You may perhaps consider that out of
scope for your initial effort (i.e. left for future work or simply a human right
not to be protected on the Internet) but then there should be included some
form of statement to that effect.

There has been extensive work in mapping UN Declaration of Human
Rights to the online context, and this includes recent efforts (including
the Dynamic Coalition on human rights meeting at IGF) let to a nice
statement on same - “The Charter of human rights and principles for
the internet” - <http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/site/ <http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/site/>>   It might
be worth looking at this document, as it already has similar mappings
of the various human rights into the online context and made provide
an additional basis for this effort.

Thanks!
/John