Why (not) talk about human rights? Politics in the Global Digital Compact

This paper examines the politics behind global shifts in human rights-based language regarding the Internet. It uses the case of the Global Digital Compact to test the ability of various International Relations theories to account for these shifts. The Global Digital Compact is an international digital cooperation and Internet governance framework facilitated by the United Nations and endorsed by 93 countries, as of 2024. I analyze 174 input documents used to inform the development of the compact. These documents were authored by civil society, academic, private sector, government, and technical community actors from the Global South and North. I integrate qualitative content analysis, network analysis, and topic modeling to measure differences in the frequency and relationships among rights presented in the documents. Historically, civil and political rights, for example, the right to free speech, have been promoted as the most relevant to the Internet by the Internet technical community, which largely originated in U.S. institutions. Contrary to this historical focus, I unexpectedly found that many actors, including technical community actors, focus more on economic, social, and cultural rights than on civil and political rights. However, they do so implicitly, avoiding the term “human rights.” This implicit support expressed by technical community actors may help lay the foundation for policies supporting economic, social, and cultural rights online. These findings also highlight the importance of considering global perspectives in future research on Internet governance. • The Global Digital Compact promotes economic, social, and cultural rights online. • Technical community submissions particularly focus on these rights. • This departs from a historically U.S.-led emphasis on civil and political rights. • Expansion of relevant human rights could be due to global political participation.