Difference between revisions of "Human Rights"

Latest revision as of 15:56, 15 August 2025

French 100 Liv.

Meme

Born free - John Barry
As free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Born free to follow your heart

Live free
And beauty surrounds you
The world still astounds you
Each time you look at a star

Stay free
Where no walls divide you
You're free as a roaring tide so there's no need to hide

Regulation

Does government regulation help or hurt actual delivery of Human Rights.

EU AI regs

Is the EU really the "rights-based" leader in AI governance?

In our new paper "The Illusory Normativity of Rights-Based AI Regulation," my co-author Yiyang Mei and I argue that this widely accepted assumption fundamentally misunderstands how EU AI regulation actually works.

Our key finding: While rights language is everywhere in EU legal instruments (GDPR, AI Act, etc.), these "rights" function as administrative tools rather than foundational principles. They're used to manage technological disruption and geopolitical risk—not to express moral autonomy or democratic values.

We are deeply skeptical of the view that the EU’s expansive set of digital regulations as a kind of “digital constitution” manifesting the continent’s commitment to human-centric, rights-preserving, democracy-enhancing, and redistributive policies. Through comparative analysis across 5 domains (data privacy, cybersecurity, healthcare, labor, disinformation), we show that EU regulation is structured around institutional risk containment, not rights protection.

Takeaway: Before policymakers copy-paste aspects of the EU regulatory model, they might want to consider whether it lives up to its own ideals, and whether the tradeoffs arrived at in Europe are a good fit for their jurisdiction.

The full paper is available on SSRN. Would love to hear thoughts from folks working on AI governance, comparative law, and tech policy.

References