What should human rights become in the 21st century? The Labour Party has proposed giving every household universal, free broadband and a charter of digital rights, funded by taxing big tech platforms. The Conservative Party derides this as a ‘crazed communist scheme’, but the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 says ‘Everyone has the right... to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.’
In a very real sense, Labour’s proposal for universal broadband is creating a 21st century human right, just like proposals for ‘universal basic services’. The rights of the future are technological – to access all services we need to play a full part in society. They are environmental – to live on a living planet. And they are co-operative – to democratise the economy, just like we democratised politics.
20th century rights
Rights are often won at times of mass crisis. In 1944, the US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt advocated a ‘Second Bill of Rights’ for fair wages, fair competition, housing, health, social security, and education. He said that, even if the war was won, if those rights were lost, ‘we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home.’ In 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt led the drafting of the Universal Declaration, placing those social rights next to political rights of liberty, expression, a fair trial, or property – this was ‘the international Magna Carta of all’. The framers could not see into the future, but knew that technology had to benefit everyone if society were to remain free. With the experience of electrifying rural areas, and distributing the polio vaccine, they knew the law must stop corporations cornering property and raising prices to ensure things like electricity and health were not ‘a privilege of the wealthy few... but a right to be assured to all’.
