Adapting the Human Rights System to the Cyber Age

Abstract

Cyber technologies have changed all spheres of contemporary life at both the national and international levels. At the same time, legal regulation in the sphere stays far beyond technical developments. As a result, an enormous number of new terms and concepts have been invented in the area. It is maintained sometimes that the changes are so drastic that the very notion of sovereignty is outdated and the individual becomes a key actor of international relations. Consequently, there is a clear need to assess the impact of cyber technologies on the enjoyment of human rights. Due to the absence of proper legal regulation, the necessity or possibility to state the emergence of the new ‘fourth’ generation of human rights on the Internet is already discussed. The present article focuses on the status of different categories of human rights in the digitalized world. It concludes that the development of cyber technologies may hardly cause the emergence of a new generation of human rights but rather results in the need to adapt the whole system of the existing human rights to the emerging reality.