26 June 2019, 16:00-17:30
Event
The Internet has provided enormous opportunities for the exercise of the rights to freedom expression, association, and peaceful assembly. As global civic space has shrunk, the online sphere has proven essential for human rights defenders, media, and civil society more broadly, to access and share information and to hold the powerful to account.
The Internet has also brought new challenges. The proliferation of ‘hate speech’ and harassment targeting marginalised groups and human rights defenders, disinformation intended to undermine public debate and trust, incitement to terrorist acts, are among those with significant and negative human rights impacts.
Increasingly, States are engaging in regulation that threatens to restrict online civic space, often delegating the complex task of policing speech to private actors, without also delegating clear responsibilities to respect human rights.
While moves toward regulation are often rooted in genuine concern for the public interest, many States deploy similar arguments as a smokescreen for their efforts to consolidate power, control public discourse, and silence oppositional voices, under the auspices of protecting “national sovereignty” or “security”.
Unchecked surveillance, criminalization of online expression and “cybercrime” prosecutions, data localisation regulations, attacks on encryption, increased website blocking and filtering, and internet shutdowns, are all on the rise, alongside less sophisticated but severe forms of harassment and intimidation. Private actors are often coopted into or actively profit from these human rights abuses, through arrangements that are opaque and outside of applicable legal frameworks.
These trends pose significant challenges to the Human Rights Council’s often-repeated maxim that “the same human rights people have offline must also be protected online.”
Join us to discuss what role the Human Rights Council can and should play in bolstering support for normative progress and action in defending our online civic space.
Adobe
A new working paper, 'AI Decoded: Key Concepts and Applications of Artificial Intelligence for Human Rights and SDG Monitoring', has been published by the Geneva Human Rights Platform.
Adobe
Our research brief, Neurotechnology and Human Rights: An Audit of Risks, Regulatory Challenges, and Opportunities, examines the human rights implications of neurotechnology in both therapeutic and commercial applications.
Adobe Stock
This seminar explores how national mechanisms for implementation, reporting and follow-up can better integrate the capacities, data, and experiences of local and regional governments in advancing human rights implementation and reporting.
Adobe Stock
The event, as part of the AI for Good Summit 2025 will explore how AI tools can support faster data analysis, help uncover patterns in large datasets, and expand the reach of human rights work.
Participants in this training course will be introduced to the major international and regional instruments for the promotion of human rights, as well as international environmental law and its implementation and enforcement mechanisms.
ICRC
Participants in this training course will gain practical insights into UN human rights mechanisms and their role in environmental protection and learn about how to address the interplay between international human rights and environmental law, and explore environmental litigation paths.
Adobe
To unpack the challenges raised by artificial intelligence, this project will target two emerging and under-researched areas: digital military technologies and neurotechnology.
Victoria Pickering
This project aims at providing support to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association Clément Voulé by addressing emerging issues affecting civic space and eveloping tools and materials allowing various stakeholders to promote and defend civic space.
Geneva Academy
Geneva Academy