Foreign Legal Instruments and Case law

David Kaye, Disease pandemics and the freedom of opinion and expression: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression (UN General Assembly, 2020)

The Special Rapporteur registers alarm at the fact that some efforts to combat COVID-19 fail to meet the standards of legality, necessity and proportionality. Disruption of access to the internet is one of the areas studied.

David Kaye, Promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression (UN General Assembly, 2016)

The Special Rapporteur discusses internet shutdowns being placed globally against the rigorous three-part test laid down in Article 19(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966.

Internet: Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights (Research Division, Council of Europe, 2015)

The report provides a guide through the ECtHR’s judgments and pending cases concerning the Internet.

Ooo Flavus and others v. Russia, ECtHR, App.No.12468/15)

The case concerns the wholesale blocking of three online media outlets on the grounds that some of their webpages featured allegedly unlawful content.

Vladimir Kharitonov v. Russia, ECtHR, App. no. 10795/14

The judgment concerns the blocking of access to the applicant’s website as a consequence of a blocking order against another website which had the same IP address as the applicant’s website.

Yildirim V. Turkey, ECtHR, App. no. 3111/10

The Court held that the internet is a “principle means” of exercising the right to freedom of expression and information.

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