\\jciprod01\productn\H\HLI\56-1\HLI103.txt unknown Seq: 1 27-APR-15 10:31 Volume 56, Number 1, Winter 2015 Human Rights Treaties and Foreign Surveillance: Privacy in the Digital Age Marko Milanovic* Introduction The 2013 revelations by Edward Snowden of the scope and magnitude of electronic surveillance programs run by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and some of its partners, chief among them the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), have provoked intense public de- bate regarding the proper limits of such intelligence activities. Privacy ac- tivists decry such programs, especially those involving the mass collection of the data or communications of ordinary individuals across the globe, argu- ing that they create an inhibiting surveillance climate that diminishes basic freedoms, while government officials justify them as necessary to prevent terrorism. Snowden’s disclosures proved especially damaging for U.S. for- eign policy interests when it was revealed that the United States and some of its “Five Eyes” partners1 spied on the leaders of allied governments, includ- ing Germany, Mexico, Brazil, and Indonesia.2 * Associate Professor, University of Nottingham School of Law; Visiting Professor, University of Michigan Law School, Fall 2013; Secretary-General, European Society of International Law. E-mail:
[email protected]. I am grateful for their most helpful comments to Gerry Neuman, Peter Margulies, the participants of the Roundtable on Protecting Human Rights in the Age of Surveil- lance, organized by the Center for Democracy and Technology and the American University Washington College of Law in January 2014, and the participants of the seminar on the Right to Privacy in the Digital Age organized at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva in February 2014.