The UN has accused Britain, France and New Zealand of abusing human rights by bringing in three strikes laws against P2P file-sharers.

United Nations Human Rights Council has released a new report on the state of online free speech around the world. As you would expect he called attention to long-standing censorship problems in China, Iran, and other oppressive regimes, but then waded into so-called free democracies "three strikes" laws.

In France, Britain you can be booted off the Internet for repeated copyright infringement. Frank La Rue, whose official title is "Special Rapporteur said he is "deeply concerned" about proposals to create a centralised system for cutting people off from Internet access as a punishment for copyright infringement. Cutting off Internet access as a response to copyright infringement is "disproportionate and thus a violation of article 19, paragraph 3, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," he said.

He notes that Internet disconnection language has been removed from recent drafts of the ACTA treaty, but writes that he "remains watchful about the treaty’s eventual implications for intermediary liability and the right to freedom of expression."