Just Net Coalition: Seeking Anchors of Equity and Social Justice in a Digital World

This chapter traces the journey of claiming social and economic rights in the digital sector over the last decade and a half. The focus is on the emergence of Just Net Coalition (JNC), its setbacks and successes; on the normative values and frameworks it has developed and advocated; on how it sees change coming about in future; and on how it is organising to achieve this. Written by three founders of the JNC, it argues that much of civil society lays too much emphasis on the risks to civil and political rights associated with the emergence of the tech giants and the platform economy, at the expense of economic and social rights. While issues such as freedom of expression and the right to privacy in the digital age are important, the medium- and long-term implications for the economy, for workers’ rights across all sectors and for social justice at the global level are ever more far-reaching. JNC brings together social justice movements and NGOs across all sectors—from agriculture, to transport, to governance, to health—to deepen their understanding of the wider implications for each of them, supports research and engages in lobbying at the international level in Internet governance and increasingly across other multilateral and plurilateral arenas. There are challenges. JNC itself has an informal organisational structure which, while allowing it to respond flexibly, limits its capacity for wider mobilisation of civil society. Greater commitment from JNC members will be critical to addressing this.