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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2019
This is an interdisciplinary article focusing on the interplay between information and communication technology (ICT) and international law (IL). Its purpose is to open a dialogue between ICT and IL practitioners that focuses on the ways in which ICT can enhance equitable participation in international legal structures, particularly through capturing the possibilities associated with big data. This depends on the ability of individuals to access big data, for it to be structured in a manner that makes it accessible and for the individual to be able to take action based on it.
1 Anderson, Chris, “The End of Theory: The Data Deluge makes the Scientific Method Obsolete”, Wired Magazine, 23 June 2008, http://tinyurl.com/3tg7c9.Google Scholar
2 See, e.g., Massimo Pugliucci's critique of Anderson's article in “The End of Theory in Science?” Embo Reports, 10(6) June 2009, 534 and Mark Graham's emphasis on the importance of contextualization in “Big Data and the End of Theory?” Guardian Data Blog, 9 March 2012, http://tinyurl.com/oac7gro.Google Scholar
3 A good example would be tracking the spread of contagious disease in order to take precautionary measures in a timely, but not unnecessarily hasty, manner.Google Scholar
4 Manyika, James, Chui, Michael, Brown, Brad, Bughin, Jacques, Dobbs, Richard, Roxburgh, Charles & Byers, Angela Hung, Big Data: The Next Frontier for Innovation, Competition and Productivity (McKinsey Global Institute, June 2011).Google Scholar
5 Ferguson, Donna, “How Supermarkets Get Your Data—And What They Do with It”, Guardian, 8 June 2013, http://tinyurl.com/nt88k7p.Google Scholar
6 Ball, James, Borger, Julian & Greenwald, Glenn, “Revealed: How US and UK Spy Agencies Defeat Internet Privacy and Security” Guardian Weekly, 6 September 2013, http://tinyurl.com/m47p5dc; Greenwald, Glenn, “XKeyscore: NSA Tool Collects nearly everything a User does on the Internet”, Guardian, 31 July 2013, http://tinyurl.com/kxn4ca3.Google Scholar
7 For example, through international treaty provisions, such as Art. 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the processes of international institutions, such as the United Nations’ Guidelines for the Regulation of Computerized Personal Data Files, adopted by the General Assembly on 14 December 1990 through GA Res, 45/95; or the studies of recognized think tanks, e.g. Bollier, David, The Promise and Peril of Big Data (The Aspen Institute, Washington D.C., 2010).Google Scholar
8 This point will be discussed in-depth at p. 511 et seq.Google Scholar
9 Art. 38, para. 1, Statute of the International Court of Justice.Google Scholar
10 Known as the travaux préparatories.Google Scholar
11 For example, “Cases” International Court of Justice, http://tinyurl.com/9pxpyc; “Situations and Cases” International Criminal Court, http://tinyurl.com/ao7xekx; “Dispute Settlement”, World Trade Organization, http://tinyurl.com/3dtvw.Google Scholar
12 For example, “Security Council Resolutions”, United Nations Security Council, http://www.un.org/en/sc/documents/resolutions/; “Meeting Records” United Nations Security Council, http://www.un.org/en/sc/meetings/; “General Assembly Resolutions” United Nations General Assembly, http://www.un.org/documents/resga.htm.Google Scholar
13 For example, the Geneva Conventions and their Protocols with Commentary, available from the International Committee of the Red Cross, http://tinyurl.com/3ucrtun; the various negotiations and draft conclusions related to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, http://tinyurl.com/ndawvgr; the WTO “Legal Texts”, http://tinyurl.com/onbv8ab; or the commentary on the work of the International Law Commission in formulating the Draft Articles on State Responsibility, http://tinyurl.com/ncv5sot. It is estimated that as of 2013 nearly 3 billion people have internet access, with over 1.5 billion unique mobile broadband users. Significantly, this trend is not restricted to the wealthiest nations—in absolute terms, there are more broadband subscriptions in the developing world than the developed world (“The State of Broadband 2013: Universalizing Broadband” (UNESCO Broadband Commission for Digital Development, Geneva, September 2013), 14 et seq.).Google Scholar
14 See, for example, the agenda and issues pursued by the European Roundtable of Industrialists (http://www.ert.eu/) or the lists of NGOs active at the WTO, “For NGOs”, WTO, http://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/ngo_e/ngo_e.htm.Google Scholar
15 For example, by following the lengthy debates at the UN or WTO, the key elements of which are widely publicized on television, in newspapers and on the internet. The debate over the past two years on whether and under which conditions a humanitarian intervention should be authorized in Syria is a prime example of the processes of international law-making at work.Google Scholar
16 A detailed description of the methodologies used to create the database is available at “Public Library of US Diplomacy,” Wikileaks Organization, https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/about/.Google Scholar
17 “Public Library of US Diplomacy,” Wikileaks Organization, http://wikileaks.org/plusd/about-ta/.Google Scholar
18 See, e.g., the example of Cable “WW Mr. and Mrs Thomas Jennings” 1976DUBLIN01707_b, available at Wikileaks Organization, http://tinyurl.com/of4×5eq.Google Scholar
19 Governments and parliaments not only commit themselves to international legal obligations by signing and ratifying treaties, they also contribute to the formation of customary international law through their practices and opinions.Google Scholar
20 “Abgeordnetenwatch” means “Parliamentarian Watch.”Google Scholar
21 Schwelien, Michael, “Democracy in the Times of the Internet” (“Mehr ueber uns Abgeordnetenwatch”) http://tinyurl.com/nwg9wsc.Google Scholar
22 These and other tools can be found at “Tools and Projects”, The Sunlight Foundation, http://sunlightfoundation.com/tools/.Google Scholar
23 While the following examples are taken from first-past-the-post systems, manufactured majorities are possible in all electoral systems (David Farell & Ian McAllister, “Through a Glass Darkly: Understanding the World of STV” in Bowler and Grofman, eds., Elections in Australia, Ireland and Malta under the Single Transferable Vote: Reflections on an Embedded Institution (University of Michigan, 2000) at 35; Lijphart, Arend, Electoral Systems and Party Systems: A Study of Twenty-Seven Democracies, 1945-1990 (Oxford University Press, 1994), at 160 et seq.; Douglas Rae cited in Lijphart, Arend, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries (Yale University Press, 1999), at 165).Google Scholar
24 The Free Trade Agreement was the precursor to the North American Free Trade Agreement which also includes Mexico.Google Scholar
25 Argyle, Ray, Turning Points: The Campaigns that Changed Canada (White Knight Publications, 2004) at 401, 425.Google Scholar
26 Argyle, , Turning Points, at 91, 323, 349 et seq.Google Scholar
27 Weir, Stuart, “Primary Control and Auxiliary Precautions: A Comparative Study of Democratic Institutions in Six Nations” in Defining and Measuring Democracy, Beetham, David (ed.) (SAGE, 1994) at 124.Google Scholar
28 Lijphart, , Patterns of Democracy, at 23.Google Scholar
29 “2000 Presidential Electoral and Popular Vote” (Federal Election Commission, December 2001) http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/elecpop.htm.Google Scholar
30 See the example of Ireland's negotiations on the European Convention on Human Rights given in Simpson, A. W. Brian, Human Rights and the End of Empire: Britain and the Genesis of the European Convention, (Oxford University Press, 2004), at 735.Google Scholar
31 For example, ostensibly the General Assembly controls the UN financial apparatus, as it sets membership dues, establishes the budgets for the specialised agencies and examines their spending habits. However, this task is delegated to the Fifth Committee (Malone, David, “Eyes on the Prize: The Quest for Non-Permanent Seats on the UN Security Council”, in (2000) 6 Global Governance, 3 at 3), which, in turn, tends to act blindly on the recommendation of ACABQ (the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions) which is “composed of sixteen members elected on the basis of regional representation with demonstrated experience in administrative and budgetary matters” (Martinetti, Irene, “Secretariat and Management Reform”, in Managing Change at the United Nations, at www.centerforunreform.org/node/308).Google Scholar
32 A draft package of WTO agreements is generally negotiated in informal Quad meetings between the US, EU, Canada and Japan. Such negotiations are then extended to Green Room discussions which include representatives from other developed nations, friendly developing nations, such as South Africa, as well as those nations which are too large to ignore completely, such as India and Brazil. The Quad draft is rarely substantially altered during the Green Room meetings. Instead, these meetings serve mainly to break down potential opposition (Jawara, Fatoumata and Kwa, Aileen, Behind the Scenes at the WTO: The Real World of International Trade Negotiations (Zed Books, 2003) at 58 et seq., 112 and 280).Google Scholar
33 In practice, responses are also issued to petitions that receive fewer than 25,000 signatures.Google Scholar
34 “We the People: Your Voice in Our Government”, The White House, https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/responses.Google Scholar
35 See description of the process at “Backbench Business Committee” UK Parliament, http://www.parliament.uk/bbcom.Google Scholar
36 House of Commons, Representations taken before the Backbench Committee, UK Parliament, 11 October 2011, http://tinyurl.com/mnqo6ul.Google Scholar
37 “Supporters Backing the FairFuel UK Campaign” FairFuel UK, hrtp://fairfueluk.com/ffuksupporters.html.Google Scholar
38 Ibid.Google Scholar
39 “Background Information to the FairFuel UK Campaign”, FairFuel UK, http://fairfueluk.com/background.html.Google Scholar
40 Topham, Gwyn “Budget 2013: Fuel Duty Frozen Again” Guardian, 20 March 2013, http://tinyurl.com/cfjwtm6.Google Scholar
42 Nitsche, Andreas, “Interaktive Demokratie durch ‘Liquid Democracy”', Liquid Feedback, Interactive Democracy, 29 December 2009, http://tinyurl.com/mynt353; the method is described in Markus Schulze, “A New Monotonic, Clone-Independent, Reversal Symmetric, and Condorcet-Consistent Single-Winner Election Method”, 2011 36(2) Social Choice and Welfare, 267-303.Google Scholar
