IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2023 - 60

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themes by making the discussion more " international "
or " universal. " In so doing, UN bodies appear
to be driven by a desire to " do something " as the
only truly international intergovernmental organization
when deeply consequential developments such
as the advent of new technologies arise. Past similar
initiatives alluded to above reinforce this point.
Albeit in a different context, Donini [49] metaphorically
captures this entrenched institutional culture
at the UN as follows: " [The UN] rambles on with its
tiny brain and huge dysphoric body to which new
appendages are routinely added as soon as a 'new'
problem hits the headlines. " Doubtless, such unprincipled
and unsustained processes are bound to end
with a little tangible outcome.
A related shortcoming of the digital human rights
discourse is the tendency to spin off into disparate
" subdiscourses. " Unlike the broader remit of formative
resolutions, recent iterations of HR Council
resolutions address the human rights implications of
specific emergent technologies. Two recent examples
are the resolutions on the human rights implications
of military and neurotechnologies [50], [51].
Both resolutions recognize the impact of such new
and emerging technologies on human rights and call
upon the HR Council Advisory Committee to undertake
a comprehensive study based on input from
stakeholders [50, para 1-2] [51, para 1-3]. And the
studies are slated to be presented to the Council in
2024 and 2025, respectively. The concern is twofold.
One relates to the lack of a coherent and focused
response to the advent of new and emerging technologies.
If a new resolution is to be adopted with
respect to every emergent technology, the overall
discourse will be deeply fragmented, bereft of a common
thread that ties each subdiscourse together.
The other concern is the inevitable protraction that
comes with it, which will ultimately undermine the
prospect of a meaningful response in the face of
incessant technological developments.
Perhaps, the unstated objective of such a process
is to provide some normative guidance to the
regions of the world where there currently exist
no robust regional human rights mechanisms. In
Asia, there currently exists no regional mechanism
of human rights protection, whereas, in Africa, the
extant mechanisms are generally ineffective. By
drawing up on European jurisprudence, the UN
seems to be engaged in an effort to fill this void
by providing some high-level international human
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rights standards. But it is unclear to what extent
such hopes of " globalizing " regional, national,
and civil society standards will be effective in
shaping jurisprudence in those regions of the
world. When one considers how in many areas of
internet lawmaking-especially on data protection-European
intergovernmental organizations
significantly influenced law and policymaking in
regions and countries outside Europe [52], the
impact of the UN's globalizing mission is bound
to be minimal.
The second set of factors is structural that robs the
ongoing process at the HR Council any hope of culminating
in a meaningful outcome. As highlighted
above, the digital human rights discourse at the UN
not only involves inherently abbreviated resolutions,
but also proceeds intermittently with significant hiatus
in between. This makes the prospects of a more
concrete normative development less likely. Worse,
such discourse often reaches a dead end and hence
is discontinued. Add to this the persistent bureaucracy
and deadlock in UN processes that would contribute
to the slow development of jurisprudence. As
a result, such UN processes often do not go beyond
the symbolic and momentary expression of concern
over the impact of new and emerging technologies
on human rights.
What does this tell us about the fate of the current
process on new technologies and human rights?
The fact that, after almost a decade of its initiation,
the post-Snowden discussion on the right to privacy
is yet to yield tangible results suggests that little can
be expected. Alongside a series of resolutions, the
inaugural SRP had-as alluded to above-begun a
treaty process to introduce a comprehensive international
treaty on digital surveillance [53]. But this
process had stalled shortly after, and its current status-as
well as his other soft law initiatives [54]-is
unknown. This is another manifestation of the disjoint
in the overall endeavor to address the human rights
implications of new technologies through international
human rights law mechanisms. What should
also be noted, though, is the apparent lack of novelty
in substance in UN initiatives. By and large, both the
most recent and its preceding discussions reinforce
jurisprudence already well established elsewhere,
especially in Europe. And these iterations often lack
substantive rigor. In the few instances where the resolutions
and reports of human rights mechanisms,
including the jurisprudence of treaty bodies, appear
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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2023

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