The Logical Elaboration of the Judicial Application of Digital Human Rights Principles

GAO Yifei*

Abstract: Limiting digital human rights research to ontological concept-centered research cannot effectively alleviate the triple dilemma of digital human rights at the theoretical, institutional and practical levels, making it difficult to respond to the human rights needs of the digital era. In the face of the judicial challenges posed by the ever-changing digital technologies and the absence of corresponding rules, rule of law protection of digital human rights should not only create new rights, but also transform abstract human rights values into concrete principles and apply them to the administration of justice. The identification of conditions of applicability of digital human rights principles is a three-stage weighing process that involves defining the digital domain, identifying the contexts in which the principles apply, and justifying why the human rights principles should be prioritized. On this basis, it is appropriate for the digital human rights principles to derive a concrete content map based on the three principles of data autonomy, algorithmic fairness and platform bias, so as to ensure the objectivity and operability of the application of the principles. These crystallized digital human rights principles can serve as decisive grounds for decisions, guiding arguments and evaluative tests, thus allowing them to permeate judicial decisions in multiple ways.

Keywords: digital human rights · legal principles · judicial application