Emerging Technologies and Human Rights at the United Nations

Abstract

New and emerging technologies have recently taken center stage in public policy debates around the world. From the European Union’s (EU) Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[1]</xref> and the Council of Europe’s (CoE) treaty process <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[2]</xref> to soft laws introduced by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[3]</xref> and a proposal for a bill of rights in the United States <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[4]</xref> , new and emerging technologies have galvanized policymaking at various levels. An overarching objective in such legislative initiatives is upholding human rights not only in the operationalization, but also in the conception and design of new and emerging technologies. But much of the recent legislative and policy initiatives are occurring in the Global North. Partly due to the low uptake of new and emerging technologies, similar initiatives are yet to proliferate in the Global South. In the few jurisdictions where such initiatives exist, one sees clear marks of the regulatory initiatives in the Global North. In Egypt, for instance, a national AI strategy developed based on the international benchmarks mentioned above has recently been tabled <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref5" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[5]</xref> . Other countries in Africa have introduced rather generic digital transformation strategies. At the regional level, the African Union appears to pursue two parallel processes aimed at developing a continental AI strategy for Africa in which the influence of AI initiatives from the Global North is inevitable <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[6]</xref> , <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref7" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[7]</xref> .