Due on 02/07/16 - 650 words - abstract/proposal paper. - use only source attached

ESIL: Interest Group on Peace and Security Workshop in Valencia -- September 13, 2012

Paper Proposal

Prepared by: Glynn Torres-Spelliscy

February 29, 2012

Glynn Torres-Spelliscy 1602 61st St. South Gulfport, FL, USA 33707 T 917-520-1435 torressg@newschool.edu

Abstract

In December 2010, in an act of economic desperation, a young Tunisian man, Mohamed Bouazizi, set fire to himself in protest of the police seizure of his vegetable cart. Bouazizi’s act of self-immolation ignited a wave of protests and uprisings across the Arab world calling for democratic reforms. From Tunisia to Libya, activists and protestors have flooded the streets and engaged with regime forces. Recent studies have shown that the internet and social media played a critical role in the democratic uprisings that have spread throughout the Arab world.1 Social media tools provided the democratic activist with heretofore unforeseen abilities to communicate messages to the masses, organize vast demonstrations, engage in critical debate and disseminate democratic ideals. The unfettered access to information, and the ability to communicate it proactively, is crucial in any democratic revolution. It provides the ability to share resistance narratives, like those of Mohamed Bouazizi, Neda Agha-Solten, and Khaled Said; it is their stories, their messages, and their sacrifices that represent the backbone of any democratic movement.

Without access to information, floundering democratic movements in totalitarian countries are faced with overwhelming burdens associated with the dissemination of their message, the organization of their supporters and the influence of their politics. This is no secret to totalitarian governments. The filtering of content on the Internet, or in the most extreme circumstances, the wholesale disconnection of Internet service, has provided repressive regimes from Libya to Syria with the ability to suppress dissent by suppressing the means by which dissent can be communicated.

This paper will argue that the ability to access and communicate information is a fundamental human right, and that the international community should take action to allow individuals in the Arab World the right to exercise this fundamental right by pursuing methods to protect access to the internet. From the beginning the United Nations has recognized that, “[f]reedom of information is a fundamental human right and ... the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated,” and that the right includes the ability “to gather, transmit and publish news.”2 What can, and should, the international community do to support democratic activists in totalitarian regimes who are

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1 Philip N. Howard, et al, “Opening Closed Regimes: What was the Role of Social Media During the Arab Spring,” Project on Information Technology & Political Islam, Working Paper 2011.1 (“Social media played a crucial role in the political uprising in Tunisia and Egypt. Using original data from multiple social media sources, we can offer some concrete con- clusions about what that role was. First, social media played a central role in shaping political debates in the Arab Spring. Second, a spike in online revolutionary conversations often preceded major events on the ground. Third, social media helped spread democratic idea across international boundaries.”)

2 G.A. Res. 59(I) at 95, U.N. Doc A/RES/1/59 (Dec. 14, 1946).

deprived of their ability to access the internet? Members of the international community have acted before in an effort to provide information to those under totalitarian control. Radio Free Europe and its progeny, for example, were funded by the U.S. government and designed to provide the citizens of countries under totalitarian control access to an alternative source of information. However, in many ways, ensuring access to the internet is a more laudable goal. The internet allows for the active participation of individuals within the troubled state, whereas radio is a passive method of communication.

Even if the international community could provide internet access, and this paper will address the various methods by which it might be able to do so, would it be legal? Would the provision of internet access to the population of a totalitarian regime, against that regime’s wishes, constitute an illegal breach of sovereignty under international law? This paper will contend that even if it would constitute a breach of state sovereignty, such a breach would be justified. In doing so, we will adopt the perspective of Richard Haas in arguing that states that commit serious international crimes, such as crimes against humanity, torture, and other heinous acts, which are the hallmarks of repression of democratic movements by totalitarian states, involuntarily waive their unqualified sovereignty and, as such, any potential breaches through a form of intervention would be justified.3

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3 Richard N. Haass, Remarks to the School of Foreign Service and the Mortara Center for International Studies, George- town University: Sovereignty: Existing Rights, Evolving Responsibilities (Jan. 14, 2003), in INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS IN CONTEXT, 698–99 (Henry J. Steiner et al. eds., 3d ed. 2008), available at http://www.iwar.org.uk/news-archive/2003/01-15.htm.

Curriculum Vitae CONTACT INFORMATION

Glynn Kenneth Torres-Spelliscy, Esq. 1602 61st St. South, Gulfport, FL USA 33707 (h) 727-289-2010 (c) 917-520-1435 email: torressg@newschool.edu

INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATIONS:

THE NEW SCHOOL FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT, New York, NY, USA Part-Time Faculty, 2008-present Courses: International Law; International Criminal Law; International Law in the Age of Terror; Introduction to U.S. Law

ST. PETERSBURG COLLEGE, St. Petersburg, Florida, USA Part-Time Faculty, 2011-present Courses: International Business Law; Issues in International Politics

EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO – Toronto, Canada Juris Doctor, May 2001 Honors: Michael John Eccles Prize for Criminal Law.

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO – Toronto, Canada Masters of Arts in International Relations, May 2001 Political Science Department, Specialization in International Human Rights Law

MCGILL UNIVERSITY – Montreal, Canada Bachelor’s Degree, Political Science with Honors, September 1995 - May 1998

Honors: Hugh M. Brock Scholarship 1995-1998

OTHER PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

THE UNITED NATIONS COMMITTEE, ASSOCIATION OF THE BAR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, Member, 2009 to Present

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Issues: Self-determination in Western Sahara; Represented the Committee before the United Nations Fourth Committee on De-Colonization where I presented to the General Assembly on the issue of human rights in Western Sahara.

THE INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE, ASSOCIATION OF THE BAR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, Member, 2008 to 2011

SIGNIFICANT WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

Testimony, United Nations 4th Committee (Special Political and Decolonization), October 7, 2010, U.N. Doc., GA/SPD/453.

Contributing Author, Liberty and Security: Recommendations for the Next Administration and Congress (The Constitution Project, 2008) available at: http:// 2009transition.org/liberty-security

Contributing Pro Bono Attorney, Confronting Confinement, A Report of the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons (Vera Institute of Justice, 2006), available at: http://www.prisoncommission.org/pdfs/ Confronting_Confinement.pdf

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