Human Rights and Private Actors in the Online Domain

2018 ◽  
pp. 243-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rikke Frank Jørgensen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Private Actors

scholarly journals “Verticalised” cases before the European Court of Human Rights unravelled: An analysis of their characteristics and the Court’s approach to them

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 246-263
Author(s):  
Claire Loven
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Main Topic ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Private Actor ◽  
European Court ◽  
Domestic Courts ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
Domestic Level

Based on Article 34 European Convention on Human Rights, individual applications must be directed against one of the Convention States. Originally ‘horizontal’ cases therefore must be ‘verticalised’ in order to be admissible. This means that a private actor who had first brought a procedure against another private actor before the domestic courts, must complain about State (in)action in his application to the European Court of Human Rights. Recently, some scholars and judges have raised procedural issues that may arise in these cases, but generally, these ‘verticalised’ cases have remained underexplored. To unravel verticalised cases before the ECtHR and to better understand procedural issues that may arise from them, this article provides a deeper understanding of the origins of verticalised cases and the Court’s approach to them. It is explained that verticalised cases before the ECtHR can be very different in nature. These differences are rooted in the different types of horizontal conflicts that may arise on the domestic level, the different relations between private actors they may concern, and the different Convention rights that may be at stake. The wide variety of verticalized cases is also reflected in the Court’s approach to them, as is the second main topic that the present article explores.

Addressing indirect discrimination and gender stereotypes in AI virtual personal assistants: the role of international human rights law

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-257
Author(s):  
Rachel Adams ◽  
Nóra Ní Loideáin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Indirect Discrimination ◽  
International Human ◽  
Personal Assistants ◽  
Private Actors

Virtual personal assistants (VPAs) are increasingly becoming a common aspect of everyday living. However, with female names, voices and characters, these devices appear to reproduce harmful gender stereotypes about the role of women in society and the type of work women perform. Designed to ‘assist’, VPAs – such as Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa – reproduce and reify the idea that women are subordinate to men, and exist to be ‘used’ by men. Despite their ubiquity, these aspects of their design have seen little critical attention in scholarship, and the potential legal responses to this issue have yet to be fully canvassed. Accordingly, this article sets out to critique the reproduction of negative gender stereotypes in VPAs and explores the provisions and findings within international women's rights law to assess both how this constitutes indirect discrimination and possible means for redress. In this regard, this article explores the obligation to protect women from discrimination at the hands of private actors under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the work of the Committee on Discrimination Against Women on gender stereotyping. With regard to corporate human rights responsibilities, the role of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is examined, as well as domestic enforcement mechanisms for international human rights norms and standards, noting the limitations to date in enforcing human rights compliance by multinational private actors.

scholarly journals Silencing women in the digital age

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-217
Author(s):  
Louise Arimatsu
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Legal Obligations ◽  
Contemporary Life ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Private Actors

In this paper I explore some of the ways in which developments in new digital technologies reproduce, and often amplify, the patriarchal structures, practices and culture of contemporary life and, in doing so, operate to silence women through exclusion and through violence. I consider how international human rights law – most notably the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) – can be harnessed to counter both forms of silencing in that each is rooted in gender-based discrimination. The digital gender divide and the rise in online violence against women evidences the failure on the part of States Parties to fully commit to their legal obligations pursuant to CEDAW. Ensuring equality of access to, and use of, digital technologies cannot be anything other than the preconditions to ensuring that women can benefit from, contribute to, and influence the development of digital technologies in a meaningful manner. The digital realm may be a privatised public space that warrants a reconceptualisation of the scope and content of human rights law but the fact that much of the digital infrastructure is owned and controlled by private actors does not absolve States of their human rights responsibilities.

Part II: Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tilman Rodenhäuser
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Adequate Model ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
System P ◽  
State Obligations ◽  
Private Actors

‘Where are the good old days when everyone knew that human rights violations can only be committed by states against individuals?’1 Gone, replaced by a complex reality in which an exclusive focus on states as duty-bearers under international human rights law (IHRL) no longer provides an adequate model to address numerous human rights violations by non-state armed groups. Instead, states in United Nations (UN) organs or intergovernmental fora, as well as human rights experts, increasingly address demands to respect IHRL directly to armed groups. In order to conceptualize this development, this book raised three main arguments: (1) Contrary to the ‘received wisdom’, human rights may not only apply to the authority–individual relationship. Conceptually, they can also be understood as applying to the horizontal relationships between private actors. (2) While under IHRL treaty law it is primarily upon states to protect individuals against human rights violations by private actors, this obligation is limited if the state loses control over parts of its territory, or is otherwise unable to fulfil its obligations. In order to avoid a protection gap, IHRL obligations should be directly assigned to armed groups. (3) Contemporary international practice suggests that this requires a differentiated approach, taking account of the different nature and capacity of non-state armed groups. Assigning IHRL obligations to armed groups needs to complement and not substitute state obligations under the traditional state-centred human rights protection system....

Liberalism in International Trade, Illiberalism in Domestic Economic Governance and Human Rights Protection in the Context of the WTO

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 238-248
Author(s):  
Vladislav Mulyun
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Fair Trial ◽  
Economic Governance ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Private Actors

This analysis focuses on one aspect of liberalism – the fundamental human right to fair trial – and discovers the possibility for private actors to protect domestically their (human) rights violated by infringements of WTO commitments. In the course of the discussion of relations between the issues of human rights protection and WTO States obligations several dimensions can be revealed.

Human Rights, Labour Rights, and Criminal Wrongs

2020 ◽  
pp. 210-228
Author(s):  
Virginia Mantouvalou
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Real World ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Structural Determinants ◽  
European Court ◽  
Normative Significance ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
Civil Order

This chapter assesses the contribution of the criminal law in protecting the fundamental human rights of workers. Fundamental human rights identify the basic moral entitlements of workers. These entitlements have a special normative significance in the polity. Accordingly, serious violations of those entitlements by powerful private actors would seem to count as public wrongs against the polity’s ‘civil order’, as constituted by its most fundamental rights. The chapter discusses the position of criminal law under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), and the interpretation of the state’s positive obligation to protect as encompassing a positive obligation to criminalize certain public wrongs against fundamental entitlements. This chapter also emphasizes how the European Court of Human Rights has developed an approach to criminalization that is sensitive to its effects in the real world. It is not sufficient to have criminal laws on the statute books. Those criminal laws must be investigated and enforced effectively, with adequate support and protection for victims, and the state also has a duty to dismantle the structural determinants of vulnerability such as those constituted by its own visa regimes.

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