Ethics in AI Lunchtime Seminars - The Case for a New Right to a Human Decision Under International Human Rights Law

Professor Yuval Shany

Ethics in AI Lunchtime Research Seminar - Wednesday 22nd November, 12:30pm - 1:30pm

With guest speaker Professor Yuval Shany (Hebrew University)

Abstract: The presentation discusses the problem of quality control for new human rights from one specific perspective – review and analysis of the actual justifications provided by norm entrepreneurs and law makers seeking to advance the recognition of new human rights through normative instruments (laws, treaties, declarations etc.) – and considers the application of this particular form of quality control to one putative digital human right – the right to a human decision. The quality control criteria presented here for evaluating the justifications proffered for new human rights - moral claims and considerations, problem analysis and broad political support - are mostly descriptive. They identify and explain how new human rights have been de facto justified in the past. They do not propose a new normative approach for how candidate human rights should be justified. In the same vein, the discussion of the right to a human decision explores mostly how such a right has actually been justified, up until now, and whether such a justification comports to the existing pattern of justificatory structures used in international human rights law.

Professor Yuval Shany is the Hersch Lauterpacht Chair in International Law and former Dean of the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was a member of the UN Human Rights Committee from 2013 to 2020, and served between 2018-2019 as Chair of the Committee. He currently serves as a senior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, as head of the CyberLaw programme of the Hebrew University CyberSecurity Research Centre and as Visiting Fellow at the Ethics in AI Instate in Oxford. Shany is currently directing an ERC research project on the development of digital human rights.  

We will run each seminar in a hybrid format, allowing many guests to attend in person and everyone else online. To help us carefully manage the numbers and ensure you receive the relevant joining instructions, please register your interest by clicking 'Registration Required' below. Further joining instructions will be forwarded once you register.