The global human rights regime and the internet: Non-democratic states and the hyper-visibility of evidence of oppression.

Human rights abuses have never been so visible. Whereas once repressive acts in distant places were exposed to a mass audience intermittently or not at all, now such material is routinely posted online, made visible to a global audience of internet users. What is emerging, this chapter suggests, is a new interconnected online space where a wide range of activists, media and civil society organizations, continually uncover, raise awareness and campaign for action on human rights abuses. It is a space that is importantly underpinned by codified global human rights norms. The interconnected websites and blogs form a permanent record of transgressions of these norms that can be easily accessed by an international audience that takes transgressions seriously. The evidence presented on these sites serves as the basis for campaigns to pressurize liberal democratic states and IGOs, such as the United Nations, to take action. The clusters of blogs and websites play a critical role in the emergence of what has been described as global human rights regime but a role that has not so far been fully documented (Brysk, 2002). This chapter examines the emergence of a global human rights surveillance network, one that monitors, gathers and publicizes human rights abuses online. It starts by contextualising the online sphere in relation to the rise of codified human rights norms, before elaborating on the monitoring, gathering and publicizing human rights abuses. The chapter draws on empirical research by the authors that maps the clusters of human rights blogs and websites in relation to two non-democratic states Burma and Zimbabwe (see Stanyer and Davidson, 2009). It aims to reveal the different advocates in these clusters, the type of evidence that is disclosed on their blogs and websites, and the interconnections between these blogs and websites.