Why (Not) Talk About Human Rights? Politics in the Global Digital Compact

This paper examines the politics behind global shifts in human rights-based language regarding the Internet. It uses the case of the Global Digital Compact to test the ability of International Relations theories to explain these shifts. The Global Digital Compact is an digital cooperation and Internet governance framework facilitated by the United Nations and endorsed by 93 countries, as of 2024. I analyze 174 documents used in the negotiation of the compact. These documents were authored by civil society, academic, private sector, government, and technical community actors from the Global South and North. I integrate qualitative content analysis, network analysis, and topic modeling to measure differences in the frequency and relationships among rights presented in the documents. Contrary to a historical focus on civil and political rights, I found that many actors, including the technical community, focus more on economic, social, and cultural rights than on civil and political rights.