SPECIAL COLLECTION OF THE CASE LAW ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION The ECOWAS Court has adopted two important decisions particularly focusing on the matter of internet shutdowns. These are Amnesty International Togo and Ors v. The Togolese Republic (25 June 2020) and SERAP v. Federal Republic of Nigeria (14 July 2022). Even though the facts considered in each case have some differences, the Court formulates an interesting analysis by applying a few horizontal principles. The case of Togo was triggered by the decision of local authorities to cut off access to internet during a period of popular protests. National authorities justified their conduct on the basis of the “national security interest”, claiming that existing protests had the “potential to degenerate into a civil war” due to the hate speech and incitement to violence that was spread online. The case against Nigeria originated with the decision of suspending access to Twitter’s application across Nigeria, based on the fact that the platforms’ operations constituted threats to the stability of the country and undermined its “corporate existence”. Moreover, national authorities claimed that ongoing protests were sponsored by Twitter’s founder. The applicants also challenged in this case the decision to immediately commence licensing of all over-the-top audiovisual services (OTT) and social media services in the country, which according to them were unknown to the Nigerian law. A first important topic covered by this jurisprudence refers to the locus standi for submitting applications in this area. In the case against Togo the applicants were seven non-governmental human rights organizations and a natural person in her capacity as a journalist. The first seven applicants alleged that they relied on the internet for their work and shutting down internet access had thus affected their right to freedom of expression. The eighth applicant claimed that the internet shutdown denied her the right to work as a journalist and also her right to freedom of expression. The Court found that non-natural persons may initiate claims to protect their right to freedom of expression, if violated, as well as other derivative rights (including the right to access to the internet, as it will be explained below). Regarding the eighth applicant, the Court also considered that she had sufficient grounds to make a claim as a natural person alleging that the internet shutdown impeded the exercise of her professional activities. The ECOWAS Court did not thus accept any restrictive interpretation in terms of access to justice in cases of internet shutdowns, contrary to what was demanded by the respondent national authorities. In particular, the respondents based their arguments on the fact that besides being non-natural persons, the non-governmental organizations behind the application could not be considered as “victims” of a human rights violation. The Court however considered the impact on the work of the latter as sufficient grounds for legal action. Similarly, regarding the journalist, the impact on her individual professional endeavors was also considered by the Court as sufficient for granting the locus standi. It is important to note that in 2018 the Supreme Court of Cameroon, a country that is not a member of the ECOWAS, sitting as the Constitutional Council of Cameroon, had declared a petition filed by the non-profit Global Concern Cameroon, for a declaratory judgment as per article 65 of the Constitution of Cameroon, inadmissible for lack of locus standi. The petition was filed because of two internet shutdown incidents imposed by the government across the two English-speaking regions in Cameroon: South-West rican-sub-regional-courts-protecting-human-rights-internet 29