26 Dictating the Internet: ICT companies have obligations to ensure human rights are protected in the course of their operations and provide effective remedy where rights violations occur, States are obliged to exercise an overarching oversight and regulatory role to ensure that corporations comply with these obligations. Tshwane Principles With respect to the right to information, the Global Principles on National Security and the Right to Information (‘Tshwane Principles’) were adopted by in October 2013 in a process involving some 500 intergovernmental and independent experts and civil society and academic groups, including the ICJ.63 These Principles give detailed guidance on protecting the right to information and ensuring public access to information held by States, in a way that does not jeopardize legitimate efforts to ensure protection of individuals from security threats.64 These principles, which were drafted to respond to increased use of digital technologies for information dissemination and a rise in the development of right to information laws, set out protections for whistleblowers, limitations on secrecy with respect to information held by States, and the parameters of the right to information of the public.65 Key guidelines in the Tshwane Principles provide, inter alia, that every individual has a right of access to information held by public authorities, including “business enterprises within the national security sector, including private military and security companies”, “subject only to limited exceptions prescribed by law and necessary to prevent specific, identifiable harm to legitimate interests, including national security” (Principle 1); that States must always disclose information pertaining to “gross violations of human rights or serious violations of international humanitarian law, including crimes under international law, and systematic or widespread violations of the rights to personal liberty and security” (Principle 10A); that States 63 64 65 ICJ, ‘Council of Europe endorses global principles on the right to information’, 2 October 2013, Available at: https://www.icj.org/council-of-europe-endorses-global-principles-on-the-right-toinformation/ The development of these Principles followed more than two years of consultations with more than 500 experts from more than 70 countries from the government, security and civil society sectors. The process also involved working closely with the four special rapporteurs on freedom of expression and the media from the UN, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), as well as with the UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights. See ICJ, ‘New global principles on the right to information launched’, 12 June 2013, Available at: https://www.icj.org/new-global-principles-on-the-right-to-information-launched/; Justice Initiative, ‘Global Principles on National Security and the Right to Information’, Available at: https://www.justiceinitiative.org/uploads/45d4db46-e2c4-4419-932b-6b9aadad7c38/tshwaneprinciples-15-points-09182013.pdf Ibid.