Judicial attitudes to the problem of state sponsored mass cyber surveillance - a comparative analysis of the recent jurisprudence of the UN HRC, the ECtHR and the CJEU

The paper analysis the manner in which the international human rights courts and bodies (in particular the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)) interpret the rules on privacy and data protection and how they apply them to mass digital surveillance practices conducted by states. If argues that the approach taken by these courts produced a polarised legal landscape, which reinforces the need for an international lex specialis to address states' mass cyber surveillance practices, preferably in a form of an international treaty and accesses the feasibility of such a body of rules being adopted by states.