Law Professors: U.S. Net Neutrality an International Human Rights Issue

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/27443-law-professors-us-net-neutrality-an-international-human-rights-issue

Two human rights professors at the George Washington University Law School have come up with that rarest of unicorns in the debate over net neutrality: a novel argument.

The Federal Communications Commission, is in the last stages of coming up with rules aimed at ensuring that all online content is treated equally by internet providers. But the GW professors are warning Wednesday that the United States is at real risk of getting itself into international hot water by violating both human rights laws and trade agreements that the United States backs.

That argument comes in the form of a new filing today to the FCC from Arturo J. Carrillo, director of GW's International Human Rights Clinic, and professor Dawn C. Nunziato. Anything less that an outright ban on all forms of paid prioritization -- which are fees that allow the providers of some online content, such as Netflix, to have their digital content treated better by internet providers -- exposes the United States to complaints at the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, they say. The absence of such bans on paid prioritization, says Carrillo, "sets the stage for conflict."

The package of proposed rules that Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the FCC, floated to kick off this current round of rule-writing in May, argue the professors, "would operate as an impermissible restriction on freedom of expression by making access to certain kinds of content more difficult for some users, based on a prioritization of services due to the privileged socio-economic status of the content provider."