European Digital Rights--Human Rights for a Digital Age?

Technological innovations in assistive technologies create great opportunities, but they come with big challenges too. One of them is the proper protection of the rights of all stakeholders, but especially those belonging to vulnerable groups, i.e., senior citizens and people with disabilities. It may be beneficial to draft a new catalogue of fundamental rights. This paper examines if the European Declaration on Digital Rights may be the first step in that direction. For that purpose, Humans Rights (HR) are discussed as supreme principles of legal systems, from the perspectives of philosophy and law. Secondly, two key features of the European HR law system are identified. Thirdly, legal aspects of the Declaration are examined, and compared with HR law. The legal analysis of the Declaration is divided into four steps: the legal position of the Declaration, material analysis of the proposed Digital Rights, enforcement mechanisms, and comparison with the European Convention on Human rights. In conclusion, the importance of the Declaration and the potential of European Digital Rights are acknowledged, and the most needed amendments are proposed.