Cybercrime Lawmaking and Human Rights in Ethiopia

Ethiopia has embarked upon an ambitious project of revising a number of laws with a view to entrench human rights and democratic governance. Part of this legal reform program has been the revision of Computer Crime Proclamation No 958/2016. This article examines key aspects of the Draft Computer Crime Proclamation prepared by the Media Law Working Group from a human rights perspective. As it shall be shown in this article, making the cybercrime legal regime human rights friendly has been the overarching objective of the revision project. Most human rights concerns associated with the current cybercrime legislation are, as a result, rectified in the cybercrime Bill. However, the Bill goes overboard in embracing themes that go well beyond the scope of cybercrime legislation. With respect to the overall revision process, the article submits that the process has not been sufficiently inclusive.