Same rights, new duties: the global digital compact and the limits of technological exceptionalism in digital governance

The adoption of the Global Digital Compact (GDC) by the United Nations General Assembly in 2024 raises a fundamental question: what do its human rights objectives mean in practice? This article addresses that question through a doctrinal analysis of the GDC's third objective and comparing it against international standards developed at the UN level and regional and national legislation, specifically the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) and the UK's Online Safety Act (OSA). The article challenges claims of ‘technological exceptionalism’, which hold that digital technologies require entirely new legal frameworks, and argues instead that regulatory practice at the international, regional and national level consistently applies existing human rights instruments to the digital sphere rather than replacing them. Three areas are examined: human rights due diligence for digital companies, digital trust and safety with respect to women's and children's rights, and information integrity. The analysis of regulations for the digital sector show that the preference of regulators is to create new duties for private actors rather than new rights. The article concludes that the GDC should consolidate, rather than reinvent, international human rights law and that the existing practice of states and regional organisations points in that direction.