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UN-INTERNET-RIGHTS
UN backs Russia on internet convention, alarming rights advocates
UNITED NATIONS, United States, Dec 28, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The United Nations
on Friday approved a Russian-led bid that aims to create a new convention on
cybercrime, alarming rights groups and Western powers that fear a bid to
restrict online freedom.
The General Assembly approved the resolution sponsored by Russia and backed
by China, which would set up a committee of international experts in 2020.
The panel will work to set up “a comprehensive international convention on
countering the use of information and communications technologies for
criminal purposes,” the resolution said.
The United States, European powers and rights groups fear that the language
is code for legitimizing crackdowns on expression, with numerous countries
defining criticism of the government as “criminal.”
China heavily restricts internet searches to avoid topics sensitive to its
communist leadership, as well as news sites with critical coverage.
A number of countries have increasingly tried to turn off the internet,
with India cutting off access in Kashmir in August after it stripped autonomy
to the Muslim-majority region and Iran taking much of the country offline as
it cracked down on protests in November.
“It is precisely our fear that (a new convention) would allow the
codification at an international and global level of these types of controls
that’s driving our opposition and our concerns about this resolution,” a US
official said.
Any new UN treaty that spells out internet controls would be “inimical to
the United States’ interests because that doesn’t tally with the fundamental
freedoms we see as necessary across the globe,” he said.
Human Rights Watch called the UN resolution’s list of sponsors “a rogue’s
gallery of some of the earth’s most repressive governments.”
“If the plan is to develop a convention that gives countries legal cover
for internet blackouts and censorship, while creating the potential for
criminalizing free speech, then it’s a bad idea,” said Human Rights Watch’s
Louis Charbonneau.
The United States argues that the world should instead expand its sole
existing accord on cybercrime, the 2001 Budapest Convention, which spells out
international cooperation to curb copyright violations, fraud and child
pornography. Russia has opposed the Budapest Convention, arguing that giving
investigators access to computer data across borders violates national
sovereignty.
The Budapest Convention was drafted by the Council of Europe, but other
countries have joined, including the United States and Japan.
A new UN treaty on cybercrime could render the Budapest Convention
obsolete, further alarming rights groups.
BSS/AFP/SSS/0850 hrs