Digital Rights are Charter Rights – Essay Series

Digital Rights are Charter Rights: Essay Series

Digital Rights are Charter Rights is an essay series which articulates how digital rights are Charter rights. With this essay series, we bring a wide range of EU Charter experts to the foreground of digital rights discourse. We invited a range of individuals with expertise on European Charter rights and digital rights to produce essays showcasing how twelve different Charter rights are also digital rights. Each essay examines a provision of the Charter and details how it applies and is relevant to digital and networked environments.

How have Charter Rights been applied in Digital Rights environments?

Through the essays, we invite the reader to contemplate the importance of fundamental rights protections in the digital sphere as well as the instrumental role of the EU Charter of fundamental rights (EU Charter) in countering systemic oppressions, harms, and injustices which appear encoded in technologies at hand. The emancipative potential of the EU Charter as a means of resistance in technological bias and oppression sits at the core of this series.

The host of rights and freedoms that the Charter of fundamental rights articulates are creating the image of a modern (digitally aware) human rights instrument. It is the only international binding legal instrument with a distinct mention to a right to data protection, clearly distinguished from the right to privacy. As evidenced in case law and discussed in many of the essays, articles 7 and 8 of the EU Charter appear as primordial foundational rights around which most digital rights cases are built. However, and as evidenced by the essays included in this series, there are many Charter rights and freedoms which are or can be a solid foundation to build digital rights strategic litigation. 

What are the primary objectives of the Digital Rights are Charter Rights essay series?

  • Highlight the application of the EU Charter in the digital rights field.
  • Illustrate -through selected Charter rights as case examples- central topics on the societal impact of digital technologies
  • Bring a wider range of EU Charter experts to the foreground of digital rights discourse
  • Examine the value of invoking the EU Charter in digital rights enforcement and strategic litigation

The digiRISE essay series is addressed to: CSOs, National Human Rights Institutes, Equality bodies, Ombuds Institutions, legal practitioners; affected individuals and communities; the general public.

We are printing limited copies, if you would like a copy sent to you or your organisation, you can write to us at alexandra@digitalfreedomfund.org.

The essay series is also available in Spanish here and in French here.

digiRISE is funded by the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme. If you have any further comments or questions, you can write to us at alexandra@digitalfreedomfund.org.

“Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or [CERV Programme]. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.”