Deepening Rule of Law Reform in the Digital Age

Leading the Way on Global Human Rights Issues
 

Tong Lihua, Director of the Beijing Children's Legal Aid and Research Center

 

I am delighted to participate in this conference today as the Executive Director of the China Society for Human Rights Studies. I founded the Beijing Children's Legal Aid and Research Center and Beijing Zhicheng Migrant Workers' Legal Aid and Research Center in 1999 and 2005, respectively. We have promoted the development of legal aid for minors and migrant workers in China's lawyers' profession, provided free legal assistance directly to more than one million minors and migrant workers, and participated intensely in the legal reform of related fields in China. Over the past 20 years, we have participated in hundreds of dialogues and various conferences on human rights between China and the United States and between China and Europe. After the above two social organizations were granted special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in 2011, we began to participate in the relevant agendas of the United Nations Human Rights Council in a comprehensive and in-depth manner. We have made the voices of Chinese lawyers heard on the stage of the United Nations. Today, we hold a seminar on Commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, not only to remember the first global consensus and principles of the rule of law on human rights and dignity in human history but also to have the courage to think about the new challenges, new ideas, and new opportunities facing human society in the field of human rights today. Since the twenty-first century, human society has rapidly moved from the industrial age into the digital age, and the pattern of worldwide governance, the way of national as well as global governance, the mode of economic development, and the way of people's production and lifestyle have all undergone revolutionary changes. Such changes have brought about entirely new challenges and opportunities for the rule of law reforms in all countries and the cause of human rights in human society. Thinking about and facing this historical change has epoch-making historical significance on how to deepen the rule of law reform in China and reconstruct its position in the global human rights governance system.
 

I. The global human rights cause in the digital age faces entirely new challenges. The rapid entry of human society into the digital age has brought entirely new challenges to the global human rights cause. First, the governance structure of human society has undergone fundamental changes. In both the agricultural and industrial eras, power was exercised by the state, and all countries were characterized by a "dualistic model of governance" between the power of the state and the rights of its citizens. In the digital age, platform enterprises, relying on powerful capital and technological advantages, have rapidly become new power holders, and human society has rapidly evolved into a "ternary governance model" of national public power, the digital power of platform enterprises, and the rights of the citizens. As one Facebook executive said in an interview, "No king in the history of the world has been the ruler of 2 billion people, but Mark Zuckerberg is." Second, the most immediate impact of this change in national and global governance structures is the issue of users’ rights. Users' rights are fundamentally different from those of consumers in the industrial era. Platform companies, which possess users' data, will not only seriously affect the political rights as well as the economic, social, and cultural rights of citizens but also the rights of vulnerable groups, such as children, people with disabilities, and the elderly, with the use of algorithms, traffic, and other technologies. We are all users of giant platform companies, and our rights are all being affected more and more severely. Therefore, users' rights will become the most critical, complex, and extensive topic in human rights protection in the digital era. Third, in the face of the rapid changes of the times, the governance of human society is far behind. As I pointed out in my address to the 54th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in October this year, unfortunately, the concept of users' rights has not yet been introduced into the human rights discourse of the United Nations. Many people are still entirely unaware of the significant impact of this issue on the cause of human rights. Therefore, how to construct a brand-new human rights idea and mechanism in the complex interaction between the national public power and the platform enterprise's digital power is a brand-new challenge facing human society at present.
 

II. Challenges and opportunities for building the rule of law in human society in the digital age. The rule of law is the cornerstone for guaranteeing the healthy development of the cause of human rights. With the rapid development of the digital age, the rule of law in human society in general is facing significant challenges. First, the rule of law reforms in various countries and worldwide in the digital age face many common challenges. Taking the issue of artificial intelligence as an example, more and more people at home and abroad are worried that artificial intelligence will, in turn, harm human beings in the future, so how can the healthy development of artificial intelligence be regulated in accordance with the law? There is currently a lack of successful experience in human society. Second, major countries and regions have not yet explored a clear path to digital rule of law reform. The EU has enacted the Digital Services Act and other relevant laws to regulate the development of platform enterprises. However, platform enterprises and the application of digital technology in Europe are not well developed, which determines the vision of its rule of law reform and the limitations of its application. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of the United States gives platform companies enormous regulatory power. Still, it exempts them from legal liability, with the result that social platforms have been indulged in their savage growth and the proliferation of hateful, violent, and false content. The intense lobbying power of platform companies and the fierce competition between the two parties in the United States have determined that it is currently difficult for the United States to develop a comprehensive system of laws regulating the development of the digital age. Third, China has promoted the development of a digital rule of law with a positive and responsible attitude. China has not only formulated fundamental laws regulating the development of the Internet, such as the Cybersecurity Law and the Personal Information Protection Law, but also timely regulated new issues emerging in digital development through the formulation of departmental regulations, such as the Provisions on Ecological Governance of Network Information Content and the Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services, and gradually established a set of legal system frameworks that balance development and regulation. From the course of the times, the current state of the rule of law in various countries, etc., China is fully capable of leading the new development of the cause of human rights in the digital age by comprehensively deepening the rule of law reforms.
 

III. Actively leading new developments in global human rights issues. Western countries took the lead in launching the Industrial Revolution, constructed a set of ideas, discourses, and systems for global governance after World War II, and played a leading role in defining the connotation and extension of the concept of human rights. In the digital age, China, alongside the West, is at the forefront of the development of the times and should have the courage and self-confidence to turn challenges into historical opportunities and actively promote the new development of the global human rights cause in the digital age. The first is to comprehensively strengthen strategic research on human rights issues in the digital age. At present, there is a "digital divide" not only between different countries and different groups of people, but also between the legal and judicial circles, digital industry, and scientific and technological circles. The legal and judicial circles lack an understanding of the technologies and logic behind data, algorithms, traffic, and the problems arising in the specific application process. This seriously restricts the relevance and foresight of the rule of law reform. China's digital applications are at the forefront of the world, and in-depth research on relevant legal issues should be strengthened to provide support for the comprehensive deepening of the rule of law reform in China and the development and improvement of China's legal system for the protection of human rights in the digital age. The second is to understand and develop the digital rule of law from the perspective of global governance and the strategy for developing human rights. For example, the rapid development of AI may jeopardize human beings. However, AI has also become an essential tool for the development of countries in the economic, social, and military fields. From the perspective of participation in global governance, development in relevant areas should be promoted in the context of regulation, and the relationship between development and regulation should be balanced. The third is to give full play to China's new role in the global human rights governance system in the digital era. For example, at the 54th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council this year, I comprehensively raised the issue of users' rights for the first time, and we hope to gradually promote this new issue as an important one in global governance and promote the development of the relevant new mechanisms of global governance. At a side event that we co-hosted with the China Federation of Internet Societies, we issued a joint initiative to promote the online protection of children worldwide and called on the United Nations to establish a special mechanism for the online protection of children. We initiated an agenda to develop guiding rules for platform companies and children's rights, among other things. In the face of the new problems brought about by the digital era to the human rights cause, we should follow the guiding principle of a community with a shared future for humankind, dare to think about how to build a new system of global human rights governance in the digital era, and courageously and comprehensively push forward and lead the new development of human rights issues as well as human rights mechanisms.