Internet Shutdowns Violate International Human Rights Law Digital Rights Are Human Rights As Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, underlined in a 2019 speech, digital rights are human rights.87 Her statement aligns with the Human Rights Council’s July 2018 resolution, which affirmed that “that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online.”88 There are many definitions of digital rights, ranging from broad to narrow, but the best acknowledge the core truth that distinctions should not be made between the guarantees and enforcement of human rights on- and offline. For example, the NGO Digital Freedom Fund defines digital rights as “human rights as applicable in the digital sphere. That is human rights in both physically constructed spaces, such as infrastructure and devices, and in spaces that are virtually constructed, like our online identities and communities.”89 Digital rights have increasingly become a focus of human rights experts. The Human Rights Committee, tasked with the interpretation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, issued a comment in 2011 acknowledging, inter alia, that “internet-based modes of expression” were just as indispensable to the protection of the right to free expression as other media.90 UN Special Rapporteurs have also taken up the topic, with the outgoing Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, having devoted a large number of his thematic reports to digital issues including content 87 Michelle Bachelet, ”Human rights in the digital age,” Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, October 17, 2019, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25158&LangID=E. 88 United Nations Human Rights Council, Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council on 5 July 2018 – 38/7. The promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the internet, July 17, 2018, A/HRC/RES/38/7, https://documents-ddsny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G18/215/67/PDF/G1821567.pdf?OpenElement. 89 Nani Jansen Reventlow, “Digital rights are human rights,” Digital Freedom Fund, December 10, 2017, https://digitalfreedomfund.org/digital-rights-are-human-rights/3/. 90 United Nations Human Rights Committee, General comment No. 34, September 12, 2011, CCPR/C/GC/34, https://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/docs/gc34.pdf. 22