Mexico’s Constitutional Amendment Declaring Internet Access a Human Right

• In Event: How the Internet is Accessed, Measured, and Governed

Abstract

Whether Internet access should be deemed a human right is a hot topic in the rights community—especially with the UN declaring it a right in 2016. The UN declaration focused on governments not “taking away” access rather than providing it—the latter would have helped those in poverty much more. Yet little empirical work has been done on its impact, thus I provide a case study of Mexico which in 2013 modeled a world pioneering initiative by declaring Internet access a human right through adding an Amendment to the Constitution. This Amendment unambiguously stated that access is a right and the government should provide access. The paper will discuss how the international system has deemed government as the primary actor for the fulfillment of human rights. It will then discuss how some governments perform better based on their resources than others in enforcing rights (SERF Index and PTS data). Then I turn to discussing the intriguing example of the Amendment and conclude with analysis exploring whether or not it had any impact on the realization of access for the poor in Mexico. In doing so I will investigate Mexican state level data to see if there has been any change on the ground since the Amendment went into effect. Lastly, I claim from a policy standpoint that this is not a chicken and egg problem—instead policies that aim to provide Internet to the poor can pursue a human rights approach at the same time as a good governance approach. In fact, they both must be pursued simultaneously as the poor will be unlikely to receive adequate Internet access via good governance alone—declaring access as a right will increase pressure on governments to provide it correctly, equally, and in rural areas.Whether Internet access should be deemed a human right is a hot topic in the rights community—especially with the UN declaring it a right in 2016. The UN declaration focused on governments not “taking away” access rather than providing it—the latter would have helped those in poverty much more. Yet little empirical work has been done on its impact, thus I provide a case study of Mexico which in 2013 modeled a world pioneering initiative by declaring Internet access a human right through adding an Amendment to the Constitution. This Amendment unambiguously stated that access is a right and the government should provide access. The paper will discuss how the international system has deemed government as the primary actor for the fulfillment of human rights. It will then discuss how some governments perform better based on their resources than others in enforcing rights (SERF Index and PTS data). Then I turn to discussing the intriguing example of the Amendment and conclude with analysis exploring whether or not it had any impact on the realization of access for the poor in Mexico. In doing so I will investigate Mexican state level data to see if there has been any change on the ground since the Amendment went into effect. Lastly, I claim from a policy standpoint that this is not a chicken and egg problem—instead policies that aim to provide Internet to the poor can pursue a human rights approach at the same time as a good governance approach. In fact, they both must be pursued simultaneously as the poor will be unlikely to receive adequate Internet access via good governance alone—declaring access as a right will increase pressure on governments to provide it correctly, equally, and in rural areas.

Author

• Jack Joseph Barry