A simple submarine cable, no thicker than a garden hose, carrying 99% of international internet traffic, shows the power of the internet.

The internet has been framed primarily as a human right, the right to access, to expression, to participation. That framing is important and generally accepted, but it is insufficient. When a submarine cable is cut in the Red Sea, and 25% of data traffic between Europe and Asia disappears overnight, no rights framework can stop the disruption. When a government shuts down the internet for days, no UN resolution restores the connection. The internet is not only a right but also an infrastructure, in the same category as electricity, water, and roads.

This reclassification changes everything: how we govern it, who is responsible for it, and what obligations states and corporations carry toward it.

Arguments about what the Internet is.

Argument 1: The right framing alone has failed to prevent shutdowns

Framing internet access as a human right has not protected it. In 2024 alone, 167 major internet disruptions across 28 countries affected nearly 650 million people, with almost 90,000 hours of digital blackout, the highest ever recorded. In Africa specifically, 21 shutdowns were recorded across 15 countries, surpassing previous years, with sub-Saharan Africa losing over $1.6 billion in economic losses in 2024 alone. Sudan alone suffered over 12,707 hours of internet shutdowns across more than 529 consecutive days.

The Rightframe alone is not enough.

These were not accidents but a deliberate show of power by the same states that signed the same UN resolutions affirming internet access as a right. These rights exist on paper; the infrastructure does not.

Argument 2: The physical infrastructure is already treated as critical by adversaries, if not by law

More than 95% of the world’s intercontinental data traffic travels through submarine cables. About 99% of international internet traffic travels through submarine cables, the digital highways laid hundreds of meters below the ocean’s surface. In 2024, two undersea cables in the Baltic Sea were severed: a cable of over 1000km between Finland and Germany and a 218km connection between Lithuania and Sweden, which is still believed to have been sabotaged .

Advesaries know the value.

In the Red Sea, the same submarine cable incidents occurred in 2024, disrupting traffic flow between Europe and Asia. Adversaries are already aware of the consequences of these network disruptions and cable cuts, using these opportunities to commit various crimes, including financial and cybercrimes and, as a result, treating this infrastructure as a target. The governance frameworks have not caught up.

Argument 3: The economic dependency argument is now irrefutable

Africa’s e-commerce market, with 500 million online shoppers already connected by 2025, is projected to reach $940 billion in value by 2032, with digital services exports expected to reach $74 billion by 2040 and cross-border payments forecast to hit $1 trillion by 2035. Meanwhile, government-ordered internet shutdowns cost African economies $1.11 billion in 2025, disrupting access for more than 116 million internet users.

Mobile money, digital health, agricultural price discovery, and remittance flows all depend on the same infrastructure that governments switch off when politically convenient. Without broadband access, the modern economy falters.

Argument 4: Critical infrastructure designation changes legal and regulatory obligations

Labeling something as critical infrastructure introduces regulation, brings it under scrutiny, and, most times, provides protection,, but regulation remains politically unpopular when applied to the internet. Declaring something critical brings oversight, compliance requirements, and coordination mandates.

Critical infrastructure designation would mean:

• It is protected: states cannot unilaterally cut it without legal consequences
• It has standards: providers must meet resilience, redundancy, and security standards; international coordination for repair is mandatory, not optional.

Legal and Regulatory Obligations are essential.

Telecommunications networks have become one of modern society’s critical infrastructures, essential to everyday life and without which widespread disruption can be expected. In October 2025, when the AWS outage demonstrated this vividly: payments failed, authentication broke, and delivery systems froze for a few hours, the digital economy looked a lot less digital and a lot more fragile.

Argument 5: The Internet drives economic growth alone

The most reconized role of the internet is it’s economic power, but there is a sronger truth that has been long overshadowed by this; which is it it is the vehicle on which healthcare and humantarian services run on, which makes it the most valuable and on the flip side dangerous infrastructure on the earth if abused as seen in the near blackout in Sudan 2024 emergency assistance and humanitarian services to millions of people were caught off in the conflict, the shutdown limited communication with their families, access life-saving necessities, and distrupted millions from receiving mobile money service.

Healthcare and Humanitarian Services also need the internet.

Argument 6: Governance is finally beginning to catch up, even if not fast enough

In November 2024, the United Nations launched its first-ever advisory body on subsea cable networks, the International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience, which is overseen by the ITU and has a mandate to develop agreements on basic cable resilience practices. The EU’s 2025 Joint Communication on Cable Security adopted a preventative, cross-sectoral approach emphasizing cross-border coordination, better monitoring, and addressing both geopolitical risks and everyday hazards.

Governance is catching up

The ITU-ICPC Advisory Body on Submarine Cable Resilience is co-chaired by Portugal and Nigeria, a notable inclusion of Africa in a governance body traditionally dominated by the Global North. But these are advisory bodies with limited enforcement power.

The multistakeholder model, where governments, businesses, civil society, and technical communities share responsibility, faces pressure from a shift toward government-dominated approaches.

Key Counterarguments

• “Critical infrastructure designation means government control”: Quite the opposite. Designation creates an accountability frameworks that make government action (including shutdowns) accountable while imposing resilience obligations on providers. The alternative of no designation leaves governments free to weaponize shutdowns with impunity.
• “The right framing is sufficient if enforced”: Enforcement of rights requires functioning infrastructure. A lack of adequate infrastructure or connectivity usually leaves the poorest communities behind, and the digital divide shows its discriminatory effects in all its strength. Rights without infrastructure guarantees reproduce inequality rather than addressing it.
• “Private providers will guarantee resilience using incentives”: The AWS outage, the Baltic cable severances, the 529-day Sudan blackout, and the eight-month cable repair backlog in Vietnam all demonstrate that market incentives alone do not produce infrastructure resilience at the level society now requires. The internet is not just a right; it is the infrastructure upon which all rights increasingly depend and must be treated accordingly.

This article was inspired by the IGF Best Practice Forum: Securing Access to the Internet and Protecting Core Internet Resources in Contexts of Conflict and Crisis.