Freedom of Thought: Reviving and Protecting a Forgotten Human Right

Alegre and Shull's foundational report for CIGI's Freedom of Thought programme argues that Article 18 of the ICCPR — the right to freedom of thought — is the most neglected human right in the digital age, and that foreign disinformation operations constitute a direct violation of that right by systematically corrupting the information environment within which free thought must operate. The argument reframes disinformation from a platform governance problem to a human rights violation, with significant implications for the legal and normative frameworks applicable to counter-FIMI responses.

The human rights framing is intellectually distinctive in a field dominated by security and regulatory frameworks. Alegre and Shull's call for an authoritative UN General Comment clarifying the scope of the right to freedom of thought — and its application to digital manipulation, AI-driven persuasion, and foreign disinformation — would, if successful, provide a normative foundation for counter-FIMI policy that is grounded in international human rights law rather than national security law alone. For legal scholars, policymakers, and practitioners working at the intersection of human rights and counter-disinformation, this is the most intellectually distinctive framework paper in the current grey literature.