(C) Freedom House
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Authoritarians Are Hijacking Global Tech Cooperation to Undermine Human Rights [1]
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Date: 2024-12
On Sunday, December 15, the 19th annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will begin in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This premier gathering on digital policy typically brings together representatives from the United Nations (UN), governments, civil society, the business community, and academia. But Saudi Arabia hosting this year’s event has raised alarms. The country is one of the world’s lowest scoring in Freedom in the World and Freedom on the Net, with authorities employing extensive censorship and surveillance and routinely prosecuting dissent. Saudi Arabia is also a well-known perpetrator of transnational repression, using lethal tactics against its dissidents abroad and helping fellow autocrats target their own critics inside Saudi borders.
Hosting IGF 2024 is an attempt by the Saudi government to sanitize its track record and pitch itself as a legitimate player on the international stage. But this move is also part of a global strategy by autocrats to draft treaties and take a leading role at international forums—bringing global norms of internet governance closer to their own authoritarian worldviews. In addition to hosting IGF, the Saudi government has also thrown its support behind the UN Cybercrime Convention. The controversial agreement could further embolden authoritarians’ efforts to shape the international system in their own image and provide more ways for governments to crack down on human rights, both inside and outside of their borders.
The UN Cybercrime Convention legitimizes domestic crackdowns
The idea of a UN treaty that would ostensibly facilitate international cooperation to combat cybercrime, including ransomware, distributed denial-of-service attacks, and the exploitation of children, was proposed in 2017. The initial push came from the Russian government (which also made a failed bid to host IGF 2025 in Moscow). The treaty proposal was later cosponsored by Belarus, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Syria, and Venezuela—all of which criminalize broad swaths of online expression, host egregious surveillance regimes, and rank Not Free in Freedom in the World.
Years of negotiations have resulted in an agreement that looks set to be adopted at the General Assembly by the end of this year. From there, it will be up to member states to ratify it domestically. The convention is a clear win for autocrats. Russian diplomats have heralded it as “the first step towards a universal international legal regulation” of the internet. Among other provisions, the treaty expands the definition of cybercrime to include any “crime” committed using information and communications technology, providing legal cover for states to broadly criminalize the online activities of human rights defenders, journalists, researchers, and others in civil society.
It also establishes easier ways for governments to access personal data from foreign actors, including private companies, regarding “serious” crimes, defined as any act within a country’s national law that leads to a prison term of four years or more. Worldwide, basic online activities—like reporting on government corruption, expressing your religious or gender identity, or advocating for stronger environmental protections—can land you in prison for years.
Lessons in transnational repression
A UN-backed global treaty that broadly defines criminal activity and mandates state cooperation is likely to turbocharge transnational repression.
While assassinations make news headlines, Freedom House research shows that indirect tactics, where perpetrator governments coopt the institutions of a host country to target a dissident, account for the majority of recorded incidents of transnational repression. In our database, nearly 62 percent of the incidents that occurred between 2014 and 2023 were Interpol notices, extradition requests, and unlawful deportations. Mutual legal cooperation agreements, like those that the UN cybercrime treaty is likely to spur, help authoritarian governments identify, track, and request the return of dissidents. While bilateral agreements often include safeguards against abuse, it is usually up to the cooperating countries to uphold them. This system has allowed the Russian government to detain antiwar activists in Europe and Central Asia and permitted the Chinese government to seek the extradition of Uyghurs living in Turkey and across the Middle East.
While expanding the definition of cybercrime could provide new justifications to request the extradition of activists, the UN treaty’s provisions on cross-border data sharing could also strengthen authoritarians’ ability to track people living in exile. Access to data has already facilitated the targeting of dissidents abroad: In 2018, Saudi human rights defender Loujain al-Hathloul was extradited from the United Arab Emirates to Saudi Arabia, where she was imprisoned and tortured, after surveillance technology from Dark Matter helped officials identify her geographic location. According to Freedom House research, at least 17 of the 44 governments identified as perpetrators of transnational repression have used spyware.
What can be done?
There is still time to take action on the UN treaty, safeguard people’s fundamental rights, and win back momentum in the contest over international norms.
A diverse coalition of academics, private sector experts, and civil society organizations, including Freedom House, has urged states to vote no or abstain from the coming vote at the General Assembly, providing necessary leadership to counter authoritarian influence. After the vote, democratic governments should reject ratifying it domestically, coordinate on follow-on protocol negotiations, refuse to cooperate with states where access to personal data could lead to human rights abuses, and improve alternative mechanisms for cooperation on legitimate cybercrime. Civil society will also need robust support from democracies, the private sector, and philanthropies to monitor the implementation of the convention, identify when it contributes to repression, and reform dangerous cybercrime legislation in each country that ratifies it.
Democracies should commit to hosting international conferences, leading treaty negotiations, and contesting elections at international forums so that respect for human rights is strengthened and advanced globally. Countering authoritarians’ growing influence in the international system will require financial resources, political will, and robust coordination among allies.
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https://freedomhouse.org/article/authoritarians-are-hijacking-global-tech-cooperation-undermine-human-rights
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