Investigating the impact of digital technology on contemporary constitutionalism, this book offers an overview of the transformations that are currently occurring at constitutional level, highlighting their link with ongoing societal changes. It reconstructs the multiple ways in which constitutional law is reacting to these challenges and explores the role of one original response to this phenomenon: the emergence of Internet bills of rights.
Over the past few years, a significant number of Internet bills of rights have emerged around the world. These documents represent non-legally binding declarations promoted mostly by individuals and civil society groups that articulate rights and principles for the digital society. This book argues that these initiatives reflect a change in the constitutional ecosystem. The transformations prompted by the digital revolution in our society ferment under a vault of constitutional norms shaped for ‘analogue’ communities. Constitutional law struggles to address all the challenges of the digital environment. In this context, Internet bills of rights, by emerging outside traditional institutional processes, represent a unique response to suggest new constitutional solutions for the digital age.
Explaining how constitutional law is reacting to the advent of the digital revolution and analysing the constitutional function of Internet Bills of Rights in this context, this book offers a global comparative investigation of the latest transformations that digital technology is generating in the constitutional ecosystem and highlights the plural and multilevel process that is contributing to shape constitutional norms for the Internet age.
Author(s): Edoardo Celeste
Series: Routledge Research in the Law of Emerging Technologies
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 254
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
2 A new constitutional moment
Constitutional equilibrium
Digital revolution
Power over digital lives
Orwellian nightmares
New rulers
Digital rights
Enhanced freedoms
Higher risks
Constitutional change
3 Constitutional counteractions
Targeted transformations
Four examples
Right to digital information
Due process online
Right to Internet access
Data protection
Uneven elaboration
4 Norms beyond the state
A functional approach
Constitutions and declarations
Constitutional charters
Limits of constitutions
Internet bills of rights
Public and private legislators
Advantages of ordinary law
Some examples
Lex digitalis
Lex Facebook
Code as a constitution
Courts and arbitrators
National and supranational courts
Private arbiters
ICANN’s arbitrators
5 The constitutionalisation of the digital society
Constitutional pluralism
The age of globalisation
Multilevel theory
Double reflexivity
A single phenomenon
Plurality and fragmentation
Progressive translation
Societal input
6 Digital constitutionalism
Constitutionalism vs constitutionalisation
The values of constitutionalism
Constitutionalism in the digital age
A new constitutionalism?
7 Towards an Internet constitution?
‘Bytes can never hurt me’
The end of innocence
A constitution for the Internet
Lessig: The constitution in the Internet
Teubner: Civil constitutions
Pernice: The constitution of the Internet society
Rodotà: A charter of rights for the Internet
Following Rodotà’s model
Internet bills of rights
Constitutional tone
Limited scholarship
A constitutional role?
Datasets
8 The force of declarations
Proto-constitutional discourses
Experimentalism
Communicability
Gradualism
Compensation and stimulation
9 Understanding the digital society
A new law of the horse?
Litmus test
A complex delimitation
What is really ‘the Internet’?
Datasets
Institutions
Reasons
Relations
Future-proof norms
10 Empowering global people
Universal reach
Restricting private power
An enlarged social contract
Participatory deliberation
Theoretical models
Individuals
Civil society
National parliaments
International organisations
Global multistakeholder forums
A new constituent power
11 Translating fundamental rights
An aerial view
Common roots
Human dignity
Life, liberty, and security
Protection of children and disabled people
Right to a healthy environment
Economic freedom
Online as offline
Freedom of expression
Freedom and secrecy of correspondence
Freedom of association and assembly
Generalisation and re-specification
Non-discrimination
Right to privacy
Due process
12 Constitutional innovation
New rights
Data protection
E-democracy
Internet access
A right to a digital forum
Public service value
Responsibilities
Governance
13 Conclusion
Contrasting constitutional anaemia
The legacy of Internet bills of rights
Challenges of digital constitutionalism
Appendix A
Bibliography
Index
