Declarations: The Human Rights Podcast

In this episode of Declarations, Neema Jayasinghe and panellist Isabella Todini sit down with Dr. Lorena Gazzotti, a research fellow at the University of Cambridge and Vice President of the Cambridge branch of the University and Colleges Union (UCU) to discuss the right to strike, why lectures across the UK have been striking this year, and why urgent action is needed. We focus on lecture strikes and the marking boycott taking place at present and discuss what the implications of continued industrial action will be for students and for teaching staff. Dr. Gazzotti offers inspiring words on why workers should join unions, and together we envision what the future of higher education could look like – if the right action is taken as soon as possible.

In episode 9 Declarations host Neema Jayasinghe is joined by panellist Aimee Hobley and guest speaker Kristin Hughes. Their discussion explores the potential human rights challenges raised by the ongoing green transition. Kristin offers insight and expertise on how the multistakeholder green transition can mitigate against the potential threats created by rare earth mining and resource insecurity, and how upscaling a circular economy can be part of the solution. In order to avoid repeating the ecological and humanitarian injustices of the fossil fuel revolution, human rights need to be at the forefront of a just renewable energy transition and global climate change response.

In our seventh episode, host Neema Jayasinghe joins panellist Yasmin Homer to discuss the work of women peacebuilders with guests Eva Tabbasam (GAPS UK) and Andrea Filippi (PeaceWomen Across the Globe). We discuss the importance of fostering and protecting civil society networks in peacetime and wartime, the challenges of political will, and how the Women, Peace, Security Agenda needs to expand its feminist focus through a more inclusive intersectionality. With insights from GAPS UK's work in Afghanistan and PeaceWomen Across the Globe’s networks between Columbia, Nepal and the Philippines, this episode crosses local, national, and international borders in a timely conversation about conflict resolution and representation.  

In our sixth episode, host Neema Jayasinghe is joined by previous podcast host and panellist, Dr Maryam Tanwir. With special guest, Professor Sam Vaknin, the episode unpacks discourses related to the psychology of personal border violations in mental abuse. The conversation questions how borders and boundaries are not only demarcated, violated, or transgressed in global politics, but also at the level of the personal. Here, physical or mental abuse is a form of structured aggression, and can be surreptitious, coercive, or disguised in a myriad of ways. Invariably, it involves the violation of our borders and boundaries - both personal and societal. In this episode, we explore these various levels of abuse and their psychological implications.

In this episode, panellist Clare Francis discusses the interplay of poetry and protest in the Iranian state with Dr. Fatemeh Shams, an activist, award-winning poet, and Persian literary scholar. They explore the boundaries of art and activism in Iran, where successive regimes have historically sought to enforce strict limitations around acceptable versus unacceptable forms of activism. Protest movements challenge these boundaries in myriad creative ways, but they are at constant risk of co-option by the state. By examining the intersection of poetry and protest in Iran’s women-led uprising – known globally by the catch cry ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ – Dr. Shams gives voice to both the challenges and the revolutionary potential of women’s activism in Iran.

In this episode, host Neema Jayasinghe is joined by panelist Vanessa Dib to discuss developments of lawfare, the power of law being used as a weapon of conflict, with guest Mr. Jason McCue. In this day and age, wars can take place within and outside the traditional confines of borders and boundaries as wars are increasingly started, fought, and ended through lawfare. To better situate the discussion, Mr. Jason McCue will help us explore what lawfare is, how is lawfare is used today, and future developments of it by using the Libyan civil war as a case study.

In this episode, host Neema Jayasinghe is joined by panellist Olivia Chen and guest Professor Gavin Phillipson to discuss the legal connotations of privacy for public figures. Professor Phillipson provides a detailed insight into how the law utilises both objective and subjective criteria to assess whether a person has a ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’, as well as how the status of a public figure enters into the consideration process. Moreover, the panel discusses whether it is reasonable to hold public figures to reduced rights of privacy based upon their ‘role model’ responsibilities.

This episode focuses on assessing the Rwanda Asylum Plan - UK’s most controversial migration policy in recent years. According to the proposal, 99 asylum seekers whose claims were declared “inadmissible” were scheduled to embark on a flight relocating them to Rwanda on the 14th of June 2022. While never enacted, the plan attracted widespread media attention and the criticism of many NGOs fighting for migrants rights. Our guests, Peter Wiliam Walsh and Colin Yeo will discuss the origin of this policy, its problematic nature as well as what could be done in the future to avoid similar mistakes. In our modern society, we expect developed democracies like the United Kingdom to set a positive example when it comes to respecting human rights. So, was this just a policy accident in the UK government’s overly nationalist agenda or is this the beginning of a hostile immigration environment in post-Brexit Britain? Only time will tell. 

In our first episode, host Neema Jayasinghe is joined by panellist Charlotte Duthie to discuss the contemporary race for justice in Ukraine with guest Dr. Felicity Gerry KC. The ongoing war in Ukraine has recently hit its year-long mark since the initial Russian invasion in February 2022. This episode will focus on discussing and evaluating the different avenues for achieving transitional justice for Ukrainians. Are Russian military leaders better dealt with by the international community, the Ukrainian judiciary, or a synthesis of the two? As a practitioner, Dr. Felicity Gerry KC offers a refreshing and optimistic insight into the capacity of international criminal and humanitarian law to prosecute such individuals in the future.

In this first episode of Season 7, we gather our panelists to discuss the topics that will be on our minds this season. From boundaries of activism in the Iranian state to the right to privacy, we’re covering a global range of issues at the cutting edge of human rights advocacy, research and policy.

The Deepfake detection platform Sensity came out with a report in 2019 that 96% of Deepfakes on the internet are pornographic and 90% of those represent women. Deepfakes are a modern form of synthetic media created by two competing AI’s with the goal of replicating hyper-realistic videos, images, and voices. Over the past five years this has led to major concerns of the technology being used to spread mis/disinformation, carry out fraudulent cybercrimes, tamper with human rights evidence, and most importantly in relation to this episode create non-consensual pornography. In this episode, the last of this season of the Declarations podcast, host Maryam Tanwir sat down with panellist Neema Jayasinghe and Henry Adjer who is not only responsible for the Sensity report that came out in 2019 but is also a seasoned expert on the topic of deepfakes and synthetic media. He is currently the head of policy and partnerships at Metaphysic.AI and also co-authored the report ‘Deeptrace: The State of Deepfakes’ while at Sensity. This was the first major report published to map the landscape of deepfakes and found that the overwhelming majority are used in pornography.

In this episode, host Maryam Tanwir and panelist Archit Sharma discuss the impact of technology on employment with our guests, Martin Kwan and Dee Masters. This area is a complicated web of issues, but our guests have the expertise to help us better understand the stakes. Dee is a leading employment barrister at Cloister’s Chambers with extensive experience in the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and employment. She advises many companies on how to ensure their AI systems are compatible with law and the rights of workers. Martin is a legal researcher and journalist, and the 2021 UN RAF Fellow. Hehas written many articles on topical human rights issues, including recently a fascinating article on Automation and the International Human Right to Work, which will be the first workers’ rights issue we look at in this episode. Artificial Intelligence brings many promises, but to many it is a threat as well. As AI can increasingly perform tasks at a low cost, what happens to those whose jobs are displaced by robots? And if we are using AI in the workplace to monitor our employees, and to make recruitment decisions for us, how can we ensure workers’ rights are respected? Is there sufficient oversight and accountability when AI makes decisions? Fundamentally, where do human rights and the rights of workers fit in the equation with AI and employment?

In this week’s episode of the Declarations podcast, host Maryam Tanwir sat down with Munizae and Sulema Jahangir to discuss freedom of expression and internet shutdowns in Pakistan, and their implications for human rights in the country. Freedom of expression, attacks on civil society groups, a climate of fear continues to impede media coverage of abuses by both government security forces and militant groups. Journalists who face threats and attacks have increasingly resorted to self-censorship. Media outlets have come under pressure from authorities not to criticize government institutions or the judiciary. In several cases in 2020, government regulatory agencies blocked cable operators and television channels that had aired critical programs. International conferences raising awareness on human rights and promoting initiatives safeguarding human rights (organized by the guests) were mired by technology shutdowns. We explore with our guests the issue, the stakes, and potential solutions.

In episode 5 of this season of the Declarations podcast, host Maryam Tanwir and panelist Yasar Cohen-Shah sat down with Belkis Wille, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, and former UN official Karl Steinacker to discuss the collection of refugee biometric data. In summer last year, Human Rights Watch reported that a database of biometric data captured by UNHCR from Rohingya refugees had been handed to Myanmar’s government – the very government from which the refugees are fleeing. This scandal has brought to head the debates surrounding using biometric data of refugees – from Yemen to Afghanistan, Somalia to Syria, biometric data is now fundamental in how aid groups interact with refugees. But how does this affect their human rights, and can it ever be used responsibly?

For Episode 4 of this season’s Declarations podcast, host Maryam Tanwir and panelist Alice Horrell sit down with Karen Schrier, Associate Professor and Founding Director of the Games and Emerging Media program at Marist college, and Florent Maurin, creator of The Pixel Hunt, a video games studio with a focus on reality inspired games, to discuss empathy games.

The third episode of this season of the Declarations Podcast delves into the topic of live facial recognition. Host Maryam Tanwir and panelist Veronica-Nicolle Hera sat down with Daragh Murray and Pete Fussey, who co-authored the “Independent Report on the London Metropolitan Police Service’s Trial of Live Facial Recognition Technology” in July 2019. Live facial recognition (LFR) has been a widely debated topic in the past years, both in the UK as well as internationally. While several campaign organisations advocate against the use of this technology based on the Prohibition of Discrimination, independent academic research on the topic reveals important insights into various trials of this technology. Our guests are at the forefront of this research and in this episode present some of their findings.

In this week’s episode, host Maryam Tanwir and panellist Yasmin Homer discuss the role of technology in the securitization of European borders with MEP Patrick Breyer and researcher Ainhoa Ruiz. It was 71 years ago that the 1951 UN Refugee Convention codified the rights of refugees to seek sanctuary and the obligation of states to protect them. In 2015 Angela Merkel famously declared, “Wir schaffen das,” that we can do it. Yet, in 2021, the International Organisation for Migration has described 2021 as the deadliest year for migration routes to and within Europe since 2018. At least 1315 people died on the central Mediterranean crossing, while at least 41 lives were lost at the land border between Turkey and Greece. The creation of a “Fortress Europe” emerges as an issue beyond borders, getting to the heart of what it means to be a citizen in a globalised, technologized world. It combines political, social, and economic interests, with the inclusion of private interests and the development of border technology for “corporate interest.” The question of accountability is at the core: if state policy includes, and can depend, upon the lobbying of private security companies, who are they beholden too? If this technology is produced for commercial interest, can its application be done fairly, without bias, or without profit? Securitisation constructs a constant psychological reality of war, impinging on the rights of those trying to get in the fortress, and those already inside. The only difference between the two is luck of circumstance.

For this week’s episode, host Maryam Tanwir and panelist Nanna Sæten speak about predictive policing with Johannes Heiler, Adviser on Anti-Terrorism Issues at the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and Miri Zilka, Research Associate in the Machine Learning Group at the University of Cambridge. Predictive policing leverages the techniques of statistics and machine learning for the purpose of predicting crime. The human rights perspective provides several interesting questions for the use of predictive policing; as the technology functions today, it seems to perpetuate already existing bias in police work, but could this be overcome? Using technology for the purpose of police work necessitates questions of who is responsible for the protection of human rights and how to decide on who's human rights to uphold in the case of conflict. What is clear to both of our guests is that there needs to be clear channels of oversight if human rights are to be protected in digitized law enforcement.

The Declarations Podcast is back for its sixth season, where we will be exploring the relationship between new technologies and human rights! In this episode we provide an overview of the topics we will be discussing in each of the season’s episodes. Maryam Tanwir, this season’s host, discusses these themes with our panellists who present what is at stake.

In our final episode of the season we are delighted to be joined by Kathleen Schwind. A 2015 Coca-Cola Scholar, Kathleen focuses her research on the issues of water security in the Middle East and North Africa. She has studied at MIT and the University of Cambridge and joins our host, Muna Gasim, to discuss the problem of water shortage and its interaction with politics and international relations, as well giving advice on how to find your passion and make a positive change at any level. An insightful and inspiring conversation, this episode offers a microcosm for what Declarations has sought to achieve over the course of this season: shedding light on pressing problems in our world today and, through our guests, offering guidance on how to solve them.