The Good News About Watered-Down UN Resolution On Right to Privacy

Philip Alston, writing in Just Security, asks if the United Nations let the United States off the hook regarding Internet privacy. While the language of a United Nations resolution was watered down at American urging, Alston argues that there is good news in a resolution that is set to be adopted by the full UN this month. Among other good points, "by basing itself on the formulations of the right to privacy included in both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the resolution implicitly rejects the US line that privacy rights derive only from a specific treaty which the US in turn insists has no extra-territorial implications," Alston writes.