The European think-tank ECIPE has released a provocative new report, Digital Authoritarianism: Human Rights, Geopolitics and Commerce, that explores the ties between Internet censorship and human rights, commerce, national security and foreign relations. Looking at China in particular, it suggests generally that countries should be taken to the WTO for elements of their censorship regimes that violate economic rights:
“Principally, a WTO case against online censorship could not attack the entire system of censorship in China or any other country. China, and possibly also other countries, is in violation of its WTO commitments when it uses censorship as a tool of discrimination and when its censorship actions are disproportionate to the stated aim of the actions. Hence, the economic rights of other countries get violated by actions to censor the Internet and online communications.”
