Project Description

The project addresses a range of interconnected challenges related to the exponential growth of information created, communicated, stored and exploited in electronic and overwhelmingly digitised form. These challenges are societal, and they have distinct and important legal dimensions that will be addressed in respect of human rights law through one overarching research question: Is human rights law, as it has developed within the post-1945 conceptual framework, capable of addressing the major challenges that characterize the current digital information age? The programme of work includes a series of annual workshops between conceptual thinkers, experts and policy-makers and will result in several journal articles across its wide range of sub-themes, culminating in a final conference and an academic monograph in 2024. The research examines whether both the moral principles underpinning human rights law and existing human rights law are capable of addressing the new and emerging challenges concerning the digital realm. The research project includes a focus on some of the human rights issues that arise from state responses to the current COVID-19 global pandemic, in particular questions relating to digital surveillance, privacy and discrimination.

Why is this project important:

1) intellectually because “The research examines whether both the moral principles underpinning human rights law and existing human rights law are capable of addressing the new and emerging challenges concerning the digital realm.” (from the above text);

2) practically because “The exponential growth of information created, communicated, stored and exploited in electronic and overwhelmingly digitised form entails a whole range of major challenges that are societal and have distinct and important legal dimensions, including adverse effects upon human rights.” (modified from the above text)