@article{2021:frei:equality_a,
title = {Equality as a Principle of the Networked World? An Exploratory Search for ‘Cyber-Equality’ in the Field of Internet Governance},
year = {2021},
note = {Even though equality is a fundamental and transversal norm of
international law, not much has been written about its role for
cyberspace. The utopia of the 'inventors' of the internet was to
create an open, transparent, and democratic space, and early
proponents of cyberfeminism even believed that gender differences in
general would disappear by improving technology. However, a look at
the status quo suggests that cyberspace might currently be even
farther away from an egalitarian ideal than the offline world. While
openness, universality, and bottom-up procedures, inter alia, are
widely accepted as foundational values of cyberspace and of internet
governance, it seems that equality has not yet been discussed in
depth, despite the apparent signs of what can be called
'cyber-inequality'. This article undertakes a first step in this
direction. It critically examines cyber-equality, i.e., the status quo
of equality in cyberspace, and analyses several key documents of
internet governance from an equality perspective. This analysis allows
for some preliminary conclusions, and to lay a foundation for future
research, which will be outlined in the final section of this article.
The article reveals that there is currently no consistent or
comprehensive approach to addressing equality issues in internet
governance and that much more research will be needed to better
understand the topic and to embed equality considerations in internet
governance.},
journal = {Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht / Heidelberg Journal of International Law},
pages = {627--650},
author = {Frei, Nula},
volume = {81},
number = {3}
}