Zero Rating and the Holy Grail: Universal Standards for Net Neutrality

This chapter challenges the prevailing consensus among most academics, activists and policymakers that uniform normative definitions and standards for net neutrality and zero-rating – the Holy Grail of policymaking - do not yet exist. But it turns out the Holy Grail does exist. Using examples drawn from ongoing experiences in Latin America, I demonstrate that the existing international human rights law framework is an appropriate and adequate source for uniform universal standards on net neutrality. Using case studies from Mexico, Colombia, and Chile, I show how the application of relevant human rights standards contributes to effectively implementing and protecting net neutrality principles, not just in Latin America but globally

Having Your Cake and Eating it Too? Zero-Rating, Net Neutrality and International Law

This Article analyzes the international law response to the zero-rating conundrum. National debates rage across the globe on whether to permit zero-rating, which violates net neutrality, as a means of increasing connectivity, especially in the developing world. As a rule, these highly contentious discussions lack rigor, objectivity, and impact. They are characterized by a clash of dogmas: the sanctity of net neutrality principles, on the one hand, versus the imperative to close the digital divide, on the other. This Article seeks to bridge that dichotomy by invoking the applicable international law framework to analyze zero-rating as a limitation on net neutrality understood as a norm of human rights, which net neutrality indisputably is. When viewed in this light, the zero-rating conundrum becomes a more tractable conflict of rights - the right to impart and receive information freely vs. the right to access the Internet - that can be constructively analyzed using the exceptions regime that human rights law provides precisely to resolve such conflicts. Under this framework, which legally binds almost 80% of the countries in the world, proposed exceptions to net neutrality like zero-rating must be examined under specific country conditions. These exceptions are assessed using a balancing test of factors, including necessity and proportionality, to determine whether, on the whole, freedom of expression is advanced or not in that particular context. This approach has the additional advantage of being able to accommodate inputs from other fields, like economics and technology policy. In short, understanding how human rights legal norms apply to net neutrality and zero-rating in practice should lead to better reasoned discourse on both sides of the debate, and thus better outcomes

The Price of Prevention: Anti-Terrorism Pre-Crime Measures and International Human Rights Law,

How far can law go to prevent violent acts of terrorism from happening? This Article examines the response by a number of Western democratic States to that question. These States have enacted special legal mechanisms that can be called ‘anti-terrorist pre-crime measures.’ Anti-terrorist pre-crime measures, or ATPCMs for short, are conditions or restrictions imposed on a person by law enforcement authorities as the outcome of a legal process set up to identify and neutralize potential sources of terrorist activity before it occurs. The issue is whether the ATCPMs regimes in existence today comply with the corresponding States’ international obligations under human rights law because, by virtue of their preventative mission, these regimes operate outside, or on the fringes of, the ordinary criminal justice systems in the democratic societies that deploy them. Despite the operation of ATPCMs regimes in robust democracies like the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and, potentially, the United States, they surprisingly have not been the subject of recent international scrutiny or systematic comparative study. This Article fills both gaps. On the one hand, it documents how the national legal frameworks in the aforementioned countries design and deploy anti-terrorist pre-crime measures, as well as how those measures function in practice. On the other, the Article canvasses the relevant international legal framework to identify not just which human rights are implicated by the operation of ATPCMs regimes, but also how those rights are impacted by it. The Article then applies this normative framework to the domestic counter-terrorism initiatives studied to ascertain how, and the extent to which, the respective ATPCMs regimes can be said to comply with human rights law. Significant insights can be derived from this exercise for other countries like the United States that authorize or contemplate implementing ATPCMs

Are There Universal Standards for Network Neutrality?

The regulation of the Internet in general, and network neutrality in particular, has become a priority for many governments around the globe. The United States is no exception. It enacted new rules protecting net neutrality in 2015 and then famously undid them in 2017. Other countries similarly struggle to regulate net neutrality effectively, including Brazil, India and those that comprise the European Union. Most national debates of net neutrality policy tend to be fractious affairs. There is deep disagreement surrounding the best way to approach the issue. In previous work, I have shown how the design and implementation of net neutrality norms by States can lead to more coherent, just, and sustainable policies when they are guided by universally-recognized human rights norms. This Article advances that thesis by identifying which human rights norms apply to net neutrality across the board and explaining how those norms fully address the most critical issues at the heart of net neutrality policy debates everywhere. These include: defining the content and scope of net neutrality; promoting Internet access to help close the digital divide; and regulating zero-rating, among others. To substantiate the novel claim that universal standards govern net neutrality, this Article engages in a comparative analysis of the major human rights legal frameworks erected by the United Nations, the Organization of American States (“OAS”), and Europe. It also surveys the practice of States that have adopted some form of net neutrality regulations to date. These comparative studies reveal a significant degree of normative convergence suggesting that standards have begun to crystallize, at least with respect to the basic definitional elements of net neutrality. The Article concludes by explaining why the existence of universal standards for net neutrality matters to and in the United States

Between a Rock and a Hard Place? ICT Companies, Armed Conflict, and International Law

What is an ICT company to do when operating in the midst of international armed conflict like the one raging in Ukraine? How should tech company executives respond to urgent government demands – often conflicting -- to propagate or censor online content arising in the context of war, including disinformation? And what of their demands to access the personal data or communications of users, ostensibly to safeguard security but nonetheless presenting the potential for abuse? Governments make difficult demands of ICT companies by seeking to impose heavy restrictions on the free flow of information and data privacy via the latter’s digital and social media platforms and mobile networks. This obligates the companies to devise new practices and policies to respond to those demands and the exigent circumstances that create them. To assist in that process, this Article maps the contours of the frameworks under international law—international humanitarian and human rights law, primarily -- that exist to guide company executives and other stakeholders who seek to follow a principled pathway to addressing such challenges. To that end, the Article first demarcates the respective scopes of application for international humanitarian and human rights law; it then analyzes the normative interplay between those two bodies of law using real and hypothetical examples drawn from the international armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia. By delving into the IHL-IHRL nexus and its function in the context of international armed conflict, the Article facilitates the constructive consideration of international legal norms by private sector actors and other non-governmental stakeholders invested in propagating the principle of humanity in this most difficult of settings

Gestión de calidad y la seguridad

El presente ensayo, tiene por objeto mostrar la importancia que reviste la utilización adecuada y permanente de un modelo de gestión de calidad aplicado a la seguridad en su ámbito general, buscando siempre mejorar sus procesos internos, lo cual se debe convertir en una constante, alcanzando siempre el mejoramiento continuo y obteniendo cada vez una mejor producto o servicio y con estos, mejorando y satisfaciendo las demandas y necesidades de sus clientes, como producto de los viejos y nuevos riesgos y amenazas que trae consigo el nuevo mundo globalizado. Para el desarrollo de este tema, se tomo como base el concepto y definición de seguridad y su evolución, la necesidad de un modelo de gestión de calidad en las organizaciones y para éstas, la importancia del recurso humano como factor primordial para una adecuada ventaja competitiva. La competencia de las organizaciones es cada día mayor, como resultado de los constantes cambios del mundo actual y globalizado, lo que significa para ellas una mayor exigencia y un mejoramiento continúo, con el fin de garantizar a sus clientes un servicio eficiente mediante un producto final de calidad.The present essay aims to show the importance of adequate and permanente use of a quality management model applied to security in their general area always looking to improve the quality of their internal processes, which should become a constant, achieving continuous improvement and always getting more and better quality products or services and with these, improving and meeting the demands and needs of its clients, as a product of old and new risk and threats that come with the new wordl globalized. The competence of the organizations is growing as a resutl of the constantly changing wordl and globalizaed, which means a greater demand for them and acontinuous improvement in order to guarantee its customers an efficient service withan end product quality

Los valores de la escuela a la empresa

El presente artículo está referido a los valores, la importancia de rescatarlos y señalar formas de cómo aplicarlos en el salón de clase y en la empresa. Se tratan algunos valores que pueden ser de mayor interés para el nuevo profesional. Se señala además la importancia que se le debe dar a los mismos de parte de la administración y el personal docente de la institución que ha formado al profesional

Radical prosumer innovations in the electricity sector and the impact on prosumer regulation

The electricity sector is in a transition towards a Smart Energy System where the roles of private and institutional actors are evolving. This work deals with the influence of some technological innovations, enabling social innovations such as peer to peer trading and the participation in local energy collectives, on the regulation of the rights and obligations of consumers and prosumers in the electricity sector. It identifies the main radical innovations in the electricity market and analyses the legal and related non-legal obstacles that may impede the empowerment of energy consumers and prosumers. Some recommendations are provided to ensure that consumers and prosumers are empowered and can benefit from these new technological and social innovations in the electricity market. The recommendations relate to an accurate definition of prosumers and active consumers, the integration of demand response, the evolving role of distribution network operators and the birth of peer-to-peer trading

Transnational Mass Claim Processes (TMCPs) in International Law and Practice

This article recognizes a growing overlap in the literature between international mass claims processes (“IMCPS”) and transitional justice claims processes (“TJCPs”), i.e. domestic reparations programs adopted by successor governments in the wake of mass atrocity. This convergence is reflected in a number of recent publications in both fields that promote the comparative analysis of IMCPs and TJCPs, which in turn, leads to the conclusion that the two processes share a number of analogous characteristics. Commentators tend to view these ostensibly shared traits as a natural source of “best practices” or “lessons” transferable between mass claims procedures in the international and domestic settings. Consequently, it is not uncommon in recent publications to find detailed analyses of individual IMCPs placed alongside TJCPs, often without more, implying that experiences should naturally translate from one process to the other. In this article, Professors Jason Palmer and Arturo Carrillo demonstrate how several of the assumptions underlying the increasing comparisons of IMCPs and TJCPs, as presented in the recent literature on mass claims processing and reparations for gross and systematic human rights violations, are flawed. Building on an in-depth study of seminal IMCP and TJCP experiences, Professor Palmer and Professor Carrillo conduct a comprehensive analysis of the two categories to provide answers to key questions in this regard: To what extent are IMCPs and TJCPs truly comparable? Which IMCP principles and precedents are most relevant to domestic reparations programs? Are there principles and precedents from the TJCP context that might nourish ongoing or future IMCP initiatives? And, of course, to what extent are IMCPs and TJCPs different? What is the nature of these differences, and what do they tell us about the underlying compatibility of the experiences and mechanisms contrasted? In answering these questions, the article exposes a number of inherent limitations to the comparison of IMCPs and TJCPs that to date have remained unaddressed. The article demonstrates that a number of basic IMCP characteristics apparently shared with TJCPs provide a dubious foundation for constructive comparison, including that central component of most mass claims processes: compensation. At the same time, the authors delineate more clearly a narrow but promising path of intriguing synergies, labeled “true parallels,” establishing furthermore that such parallels represent avenues for potential cross-fertilization in both directions