If this is the global community, we must be on the bad side of town: international policing of child pornography on the Internet.

• Author: Stewart, Jennifer

1. INTRODUCTION

   This Comment discusses child pornography as it exists on the Internet and the global battle by nations against its proliferation. It addresses the development and mechanics of how child pornography began appearing on the Internet. The remainder of the Comment discusses various nations' and international organizations' attempts to stop or at least control child pornography through legislative and law enforcement policies. Other alternative solutions such as international registries of names are also considered. The theme throughout this Comment is what an incredibly arduous battle that is developing, when one takes into account that curtailing child pornography on the Internet involves the policing of citizens with widely differing domestic laws, cultures, and social mores on a worldwide scale.

   In the summer of 1996, a U.S. federal grand jury indicted thirteen individuals from the United States, and three from Australia, Canada, and Finland were charged with orchestrating and participating in an on-line molestation of ten-year-old girls.(1) The defendants took part in real-time photo shoots where they typed messages requesting photos of the girls in certain poses, while one member shot photos with a digital camera and transmitted the photos back to the group.(2) The defendants were members of the "Orchid Club," a private, on-line child pornography group that shared sexually explicit images and videos of girls as young as five.(3) To be a member of the Orchid Club, members had to know the password to access photos and on-line chat sessions.(4) Initiation to the club required a potential member to describe a personal sexual experience with a child.(5)

   At any given time, there are, on average, around one million sexually explicit pictures of children on the Internet.(6) In just one week in December of 1995, 5,651 messages about child pornography(7) were posted on just 4 electronic bulletin boards.(8) Included in these messages were over eight hundred graphic pictures of adults or teenagers engaged in sexual activity with children between eight and ten years of age.(9)

   These statistics and the perverse meld of crime, technology, and subculture evidenced by the Orchid Club were hardly contemplated by the nations that ratified the United Nations 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).(10) The UNCRC, which as of April 15, 1996, was ratified by 187 countries,(11) provides basic international guidelines for the protection of children from sexual exploitation via child pornography.(12) Cited by experts as a "watershed document,"(13) Article 34 of the UNCRC provides:

   States Parties undertake to protect the child from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse . . . [and] take all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent: (a) The inducement or coercion of a child to engage in any unlawful sexual activity; (b) The exploitative use of children in prostitution or other unlawful sexual practices; [and] (c) The exploitative use of children in pornographic performances and materials.(14) The UNCRC's implementation mechanism states that the governments of all the nations who have ratified the UNCRC are obligated to take every measure possible, whether individually or in conjunction with other governments, to prevent child pornography within their borders.(15) Thus, if these governments fail to enforce their own laws against child pornography, they are in violation of the UNCRC.(16)

   The UNCRC is the first legally binding international agreement that protects children from sexual exploitation.(17) It contains key provisions against all forms of sexual abuse and exploitation, and calls for various legal, administrative, and social measures to protect children.(18) This Comment will show that the UNCRC's effectiveness may be muted by its fragmented implementation, conflicting laws among the nations that have adopted it, and the onset of advanced computer technology which provides easy and inexpensive access to child pornography. The rapid evolution of technology in conjunction with a strong consumer market is making appropriate legislative answers to this trend increasingly difficult. The Internet is exceptional in that it has no land boundaries and no internal regulation. It is a worldwide service, and postings of information can be anonymous. As a result, law enforcement in the international community is unable to keep pace.(19)

   Many nations have introduced legislation dealing with computer child pornography, as current laws do not address prohibited material found on the Internet.(20) The impetus for new legislation stems from public interest non-governmental organizations (NGOs) coupled with investigations and arrests involving the creation, distribution, and possession of child pornography on the Internet.(21)

   In August 1996, 1,879 participants from 119 nations attended the World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Stockholm, Sweden.(22) The primary aim of the Congress was to announce an "Agenda for Action" to identify and address programs, legislation, and policies of different nations to combat the sexual exploitation of children.(23) The main items on the Agenda for the Congress were to address the exchange of child pornography on the Internet,(24) to ensure that the promises set forth by the nations who ratified the UNCRC are enforced, and to ensure that the UNCRC keeps pace with technology.(25)

2. BACKGROUND

   Traditionally, child pornography was produced and distributed in the form of photographs and magazines.(26) Photographs and film were usually commercially processed, thus employees in processing shops could provide tips to authorities about sexually explicit material involving children.(27) Distribution required the mail or the use of clandestine distribution networks.(28) With the development of home video technology in the mid-1980s, commercial film processing was no longer necessary.(29) Inexpensive camcorders allow pedophiles(30) to produce amateur child pornography videos in their own homes, with little risk of discovery by informants or authorities.(31) Moreover, these videos can be produced almost anywhere. For example, inventive German marketers sell an amateur video depicting the mass rape of female children produced during the Bosnian war.(32)

   The 1990s saw the emergence of perhaps the most important exchange medium for child pornography--the Internet, with an estimated thirty million users.(33) The result has been an alarming expansion of the child pornography industry.(34) Child pornography was nearly stamped out as a cottage industry in the United States in the 1980s, but has resurged in the 1990s due to unregulated news groups, chat rooms, and commercial on-line services.(35)

3. HOW AND WHY CHILD PORNOGRAPHY IS ON THE INTERNET

   According to the NGO Norwegian Save the Children, pedophiles use the Internet for three main applications:

   [E]lectronic shops where customers [can] browse through a catalogue of pornographic images and download their choice by giving their credit card number; private paedophile networks where abusers swap stories, pictures and details on how to find children; and electronic "chat groups" where pornography can be exchanged more or less anonymously.(36) There are numerous reasons for the profusion of child pornography on the Internet and computer bulletin boards.

   1. Ease of Access, Production, and Distribution in a Global Market

      Child pornography is a global industry.(37) Most European child pornography originates in England.(38) Germany is also considered a major producer.(39) The Netherlands and the United Kingdom are distribution centers, and the United States is the largest consumer market.(40) As North American and European nations pass legislation to crack down on child pornography, South East Asia has taken over much of the production and distribution.(41) Hungary and the Czech Republic represent new, emerging markets.(42) Amsterdam and Manila are pedophile "hubs" for the circulation of child pornography worldwide.(43) The rapid advance of technology has opened new, global doors for the users, producers, and distributors of child pornography. As noted by the President of the Children's Court in Bobigny, France: "Pedophiles exploit the Internet with no precautions, exchanging names and addresses in plain sight of everyone, taking advantage of an obvious legal void. Who is the proprietor of the Internet? Who is legally responsible?"(44)

      1. Access

         If one has access to a computer and a modem, one has access to child pornography.(45) Before computers, consumers and distributors of child pornography had to actually know each other to trade or exchange material.(46) They had to be privy to underground networks that exchanged photographs or videos through the mail or in person or had to obtain foreign magazines that contained child pornography.(47) Contrast the 1970s and 1980s to a scene from 1995: a U.S. citizen is arrested for the possession of a picture of an underage girl having sex with an adult man, obtained by dialing in to the bulletin board BAMSE, originating out of Aalborg, Denmark.(48) Subscribers to bulletin boards, like the BAMSE bulletin board, are able to download Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) files through their computer modems, allowing them to view and print the files.(49)

         U.S. law enforcement agencies have found bulletin boards carrying child pornography in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Sweden, Finland, Italy, Thailand, the Netherlands, and Japan.(50) These bulletin boards found on the Internet provide a "powerful, worldwide medium for the exchange of pornographic materials.... `With the Internet, the pornography appears instantly: in 10 minutes you have all the photos you want.'"(51)

      2. Production

         Photographic images from pictures or books can be input into a computer using scanners, devices that convert images into digital form that may be saved as files on a...