11 It was argued that the suspension of telecommunication licenses could only be effected upon a “proclamation of emergency by the President” (as used in section 54 of the Act of 1996 read with Part X of the Constitution of Pakistan). Since no such proclamation preceded the directive suspending internet services, the directive was argued to be unlawful. The third bucket of argumentation on merits centred around the economic impact of the shutdowns. Both actual and estimated impacts were provided by the petitioners. In Amnesty International Togo, the petitioners argued that they could not carry out daily work and the shutdown may have cost the Togolese economy up to USD 1,800,000—a figure arrived by relying on empirical evidence from UN Special Rapporteur on Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression.30 The petitioners before the Constitutional Council of Cameroon made a similar empirical claim, although the method of calculation was not produced in the petition. In ZLHR and MISA Zimbabwe, while actual or estimated impacts were not provided by petitioners, the impact on individual businesses, internet banking and inward remittances was a key argument placed before the court. has not yet been judicially recognized. In Amnesty International Togo, the respondents argued that the human rights organizations did not have locus standi as they were not natural persons norvictims. They also argued that the eighth petitioner—a journalist and activist—had failed to show why they had been individually impacted. On merits, the respondents (authorities) used three key strategies to respond to the petition, as we describe below. The first strategy was to cast aspersions on the nature and intentions of the protesters, thereby illustrating the necessity of disrupting internet access to prevent the protesters from communicating with each other. It was argued across cases that the protests were already or were in danger of turning violent in the short run. For example, in Amnesty International Togo, the government of Togo alleged that there had been a loss of life as a result of the protests and that the situation was drifting into civil war. In the same case, the government of Togo also cast aspersions on the motivations of the protesters, claiming that they were sparked by opposition parties while the government had sought inclusive dialogue and even sought to amend the Constitution in Parliament, which according to the government Respondents was the root cause of the protests. Who are the respondents? Similarly, in Jammu and Kashmir, in Anuradha Bhasin, the respondents argued that the usage of social media and mass communication could potentially be used as a means to incite violence, especially from outside the country. They further argued that this danger is compounded by the presence of fake news and images that further instigate such violence, as well as the purchase of weapons on the dark web. The respondents in Murad Khazbiev went so far as to delegitimize the respondents’ claims by alleging that the protesters were engaging in “terrorist” and “diversionary” activities. The respondents in all jurisdictions included the state, often through agencies, ministries or departments of the government responsible for implementing or ordering the shutdown. As the state is responsible for upholding fundamental rights, state agencies must be included as respondents in these litigations. In certain cases, such as in ZLHR and MISA Zimbabwe, telecommunications companies were also added as respondents for having implemented the shutdown. Respondents’ arguments A common strategy adopted by respondents was to argue for rendering the petition inadmissible. They focused on the locus standi of the petitioners in jurisdictions where public interest litigation In PTA, the Supreme Court of Pakistan acknowledged that a legitimate need for suspending cellular services was felt by law enforcement agencies due to their prior experience of terrorist activities at similar events. This had prompted the suspension directives (which included religious processions, national parades and protests). 30 United Nations. (2017). Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression to the United Nations Human Rights Council. United Nations. https: //www.undocs.org/A/HRC/35/22