scholarly journals Regulating Artificial Intelligence through a Human Rights-Based Approach in Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Oyeniyi Abe ◽  
Akinyi J. Eurallyah
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Healthcare Education ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Societal Challenges ◽  
New Methodologies ◽  
Human Rights Based Approach ◽  
Regulatory Challenges

Abstract While the dawn of Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions have aided in solving some of societal challenges, globalization and technological innovation potentially have the capability to disrupt, suspend, or change existing legal order, preventing the realization of business and human rights principles. For example, with AI-enabled systems, Africans can now access better healthcare, education, health, and transportation. However, AI has the potential to undermine human rights concerns. This article contextualizes the usage of AI systems and its implications for human rights violations. With particular reference to Africa, it gives an overarching context capable of constructing legal reactions to corporate related human rights violations. Some of the questions posed are: What are the ways human rights can be protected from exploitative tendencies of AI companies? How can African states, and businesses respond to regulatory challenges triggered by loss of work due to automation? What innovations and new methodologies are to be designed to engage with a sustainable and automated future? Finally, we propose reforms for corporate entities developing and deploying AI to respect human rights.

Part III The Social Dimension, 14 Human Rights

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muchlinski Peter T
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Multinational Enterprises ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
State Action ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Council ◽  
The Social ◽  
Corporate Social

This chapter evaluates another element of corporate social responsibility (CSR) applicable to multinational enterprises (MNEs): human rights. Historically, human rights have been used by corporations to protect their vital interests against state action, leading to human/civil rights protections for corporations. The chapter focuses on how far MNEs, and other business actors, should be responsible for human rights violations. This has been significantly influenced by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), endorsed in June of 2011 by the UN Human Rights Council, which implement the UN ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ framework. The UNGPs have created a framework for business and human rights that covers three pillars: the state duty to protect human rights, the corporate responsibility to respect human rights and access to remedy. The chapter then traces the development of concern for business and human rights, and discusses the justifications for holding businesses accountable for human rights violations, the establishment of business and human rights on the agenda of the UN and the principal areas in which business violations of human rights arise.

Artificial Intelligence Politicking and Human Rights Violations in UK’s Democracy: A Critical Appraisal of the Brexit Referendum

2021 ◽  
pp. 615-626
Author(s):  
Ikedianchi Ayodele Power Wogu ◽  
Sanjay Misra ◽  
Oluwakemi Deborah Udoh ◽  
Benedict C. Agoha ◽  
Muyiwa Adeniyi Sholarin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Human Rights Violations

scholarly journals Introductory Remarks by Molly K. Land

2018 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 127-128
Author(s):  
Molly K. Land
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Satellite Data ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Criminal Investigations ◽  
New Methodologies ◽  
Fact Finding

New innovations in human rights fact-finding and criminal investigations offer both opportunities and challenges for human rights law in practice.1 As documentation of human rights violations becomes more difficult and complex, practitioners are exploring ways to augment their work with new tools and new methodologies.2 Social media, accessible satellite data, and even drone technology have expanded the capacity of human rights investigators to document abuses, even when access to the sites of atrocities is limited.

scholarly journals The Information Regulation of Business Actors

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 130-133
Author(s):  
Kishanthi Parella
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Rainforest Alliance ◽  
Persuasive Power ◽  
Multistakeholder Initiatives ◽  
Industry Associations

A transnational legal order (TLO) is emerging regarding the role of businesses in respecting human rights. This legal order includes multistakeholder initiatives, international organization recommendations and guidelines, NGO certifications, and other voluntary instruments. Many of the norms within this TLO are nonbinding and therefore lack mandatory compliance; what they may possess is persuasive power, particularly when the norms are developed, endorsed, and managed by reputable organizations. It is that reputational, or legitimacy, advantage that matters for encouraging industry associations to comply with the nonbinding norms associated with these organizations. Industry associations and other business actors will gravitate more towards legitimacy enhancing organizations when their own legitimacy is at stake. They pivot towards public organizations such as the United Nations or private NGO initiatives like the Rainforest Alliance, seeking to associate themselves publicly with these organizations that enjoy more perceived legitimacy. These business relationships with legitimizing bodies can take the form of partnerships, certifications, or other arrangements where an industry association adopts and incorporates nonbinding norms when it otherwise might not. In this essay, I discuss three transnational legal processes that encourage industry associations, their members, and other business actors to abide by nonbinding transnational legal norms concerning business and human rights.

scholarly journals Outlining the Case for a Common Law Duty of Care of Business to Exercise Human Rights Due Diligence

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doug CASSEL
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Duty Of Care ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
A Company ◽  
Human Rights Due Diligence

AbstractThis article outlines the case for a business duty of care to exercise human rights due diligence, judicially enforceable in common law countries by tort suits for negligence brought by persons whose potential injuries were reasonably foreseeable. A parent company’s duty of care would extend to the human rights impacts of all entities in the enterprise, including subsidiaries. A company would not be liable for breach of the duty of care if it proves that it reasonably exercised due diligence as set forth in the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. On the other hand, a company’s failure to exercise due diligence would create a rebuttable presumption of causation and hence liability. A company could then avoid liability only by carrying its burden to prove that the risk of the human rights violations was not reasonably foreseeable, or that the damages would have resulted even if the company had exercised due diligence.

Determining Criteria to Evaluate Outcomes of Businesses’ Provision of Remedy: Applying a Human Rights-Based Approach

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin THOMPSON
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Operational Level ◽  
Guiding Principles ◽  
Human Rights Standards ◽  
Human Rights Based Approach

AbstractThe UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (GPs) expect businesses to participate in operational-level, non-judicial mechanisms to address the grievances of communities affected by their activities. While there is guidance on operational-level grievance mechanisms as to what constitutes an effective process, inquiries into the effectiveness of outcomes have been met with less success. This article identifies three key incongruities within the GPs regarding effective outcomes: (1) the broader interpretation of remedy within the Remedy Pillar compared to the Respect Pillar; (2) the novelty of enforcing human rights through dialogue and engagement as opposed to adjudication; and (3) the difficulty in reconciling objective human rights standards with the subjective preferences of the parties. It then aims to resolve these issues by applying a human rights-based approach: examining how empowerment of communities can act as the founding basis for understanding whether an outcome is effective. It concludes by examining the working of the Porgera Mine mechanism from this perspective.

‘Is Fox News a Breach of Human Rights?’: The News Media’s Immunity from the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah JOSEPH
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Media Industry ◽  
Fox News ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
The Media ◽  
Guiding Principles

AbstractThe business and human rights debate has essentially bypassed the media industry. This article addresses that gap in the debate by applying the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to the media. Application of human rights responsibilities to the media in accordance with the Guiding Principles is significantly complicated by the existence of media rights of freedom of expression. It is argued that the application of the Guiding Principles to the media industry leaves significant scope for it to be involved with serious and systemic human rights violations. This conclusion indicates that the Guiding Principles are an inadequately theorised tool for dealing with human rights responsibilities of the media. It may reveal deeper flaws in the Guiding Principles, which extend to industries other than the media. At the least, a dialogue between the human rights community and the media industry must commence in order to work out how human rights might apply in the context of the responsibilities of one of the world’s most important and powerful industries.

scholarly journals Private Processes and Public Values: Disciplining Trade in Forest and Ecosystem Risk Commodities via Non-Financial Due Diligence

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Enrico Partiti
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Private Standards ◽  
Ecosystem Risk ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
International Demand ◽  
The Many

Abstract This article takes stock of the many private and public instruments enacted transnationally to tackle the pressing problem of deforestation, ecosystem conversion, and associated human rights violations caused by international demand for and trade in agricultural commodities. The article argues that non-financial due diligence based on no-conversion criteria, and in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, holds considerable potential for ensuring deforestation-free value chains by enrolling and scaling up firm-level supply-chain management systems and private standards. The article introduces the main features of a possible European Union measure that disciplines via non-financial due diligence the placing on the market of commodities and products associated with deforestation, ecosystem conversion, degradation of forests and ecosystems, and associated human rights violations. Such a measure would also have the effect of streamlining initiatives enacted by private authority.

The Necessity for a Business and Human Rights Treaty

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
David BILCHITZ
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Working Group ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Transnational Corporations ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Legal Instrument ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Council

AbstractIn June 2014, the Human Rights Council passed a resolution establishing an inter-governmental working group to discuss a legally binding instrument relating to transnational corporations and other business enterprises. In this article, I outline four arguments for why such an instrument is desirable. Identifying the purpose of such a treaty is crucial in outlining a vision of what it should seek to achieve and in determining its content. The arguments indicate that a treaty is necessary to provide legal solutions to cure serious lacunae and ambiguities in the current framework of international law which have a serious negative impact upon the rights of individuals affected by corporate activities. The emphasis throughout is upon why a binding legal instrument is important, as opposed to softer forms of regulation such as the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The four arguments in turn provide the resources to respond to objections raised against the treaty and to reject an alternative, more restrictive proposal for a treaty that only addresses ‘gross’ human rights violations.

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