Introduction

The webinar brings together distinguished experts from practice and academia to discuss an emerging category of human rights – digital rights. Special attention will be devoted to the rights of the most vulnerable individuals, groups, and communities, including children, women, persons with disabilities, racial minorities, and Indigenous peoples. The participants will address the challenges of interpreting and realising fundamental rights in an increasingly digitalised environment. In particular, the webinar will explore how contemporary practices in the design, development, deployment, and use of AI by states, intergovernmental organisations, and non-state actors may violate human rights and exacerbate inequality, poverty, discrimination, social exclusion, and marginalisation.

The webinar seeks to advance the conceptualisation of digital rights by engaging with some of the most pressing and contested questions in the field: To what extent can internationally recognised human rights be applied in the digital context? What is the place of digital rights within international human rights law? Which digital rights have already been recognised, and which still require legal recognition? What are their normative foundations, content, and scope? Who are the right-holders, and which individuals and communities require special protection? Should the status of rights-holders be extended to non-human entities, such as digital personalities, robots, or AI systems? What obligations arise for states, international organisations, and corporate actors, including Big Tech, from digital rights? What role do international institutions, especially United Nations mechanisms, play in protecting and promoting digital rights? How are these rights enforced before judicial and quasi-judicial bodies? Finally, what normative and institutional reforms are required to ensure the meaningful enjoyment of digital rights for all?

This webinar will be moderated by Dr. Elena Pribytkova and Professor Hélène Tigroudja

Speakers

Dr. Ashwini K.P. | U.N. Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance

Dr. Ashwini K.P. is the U.N. Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. She previously served as an Assistant Professor in Political Science in India. She has primarily focused on social exclusion, intersectionality, race, and descent-based discrimination in the international human rights framework. As part of her research and activism, she has focused on policies related to marginalised communities such as Dalit and Indigenous communities in India. Dr. Ashwini K.P. has represented Indian Dalit women in various civil society groups, helping them in strategising methods to ensure that women from marginalised communities are represented in decision-making roles in activism and mainstream social movements. Dr. Ashwini K.P. has previously worked with Amnesty International India. She is the co-founder of a non-profit organisation called Zariya, focused on marginalised women and knowledge creation. She is also a visiting fellow at Stanford University.

Dr. Heba Hagrass | U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Dr. Heba Hagrass is the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities. She is an advocate, an international disability consultant, and a researcher with extensive experience in Egypt, the Arab Region, and worldwide. She holds a PhD in Disability Studies from the University in Leeds with a specialisation in disability rights and social policies, gender, and employment. She served as a Member of the House of Parliament of Egypt, the Secretary General of the Egyptian National Council for Disability Affairs, and a member of the Governing Council of the National African Peer Review Mechanism. She is a board member of both the National Council for Persons with Disabilities and the National Council for Women, and a founding member of the Arab Organization of Disabled People. She has worked as a consultant on disability rights and inclusion with numerous international, regional, and national organisations, such as U.N. agencies, the International Disability Alliance, CBM Advisory Group, Disabled People International, Rehabilitation International, Save the Children U.K., Plan Egypt, Coptic-Evangelical Organization for social services, Arab Labor Organization, and diverse Egyptian Ministries.

Professor Sophie Kiladze | Chair of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child; Professor at Grigol Robakidze University, Georgia

Professor Sophie Kiladze is the Chair of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child and Professor of Public Law at Grigol Robakidze University in Georgia, with a background in international law and a career spanning the Parliament of Georgia, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Council of Europe’s Commission against Racism and Intolerance. She initiated the Joint Statement on Artificial Intelligence and the Rights of the Child – the first international document by multilateral organisations specifically addressing child rights in the context of AI – developed in collaboration with ITU, UNICEF, UNESCO, and other international bodies. She is an author of comprehensive reforms in the field of child rights and social work in Georgia. She is a graduate of the Law Faculty of the University of Heidelberg (Staatsexamen), Germany, holds a PhD degree, and has extensive academic experience, including work at the Max-Planck Institute for Public International Law in Heidelberg; teaching Public International Law, Constitutional Law, and Child Rights Law at different universities; and serving as Vice-Rector of the Police Academy.

Professor Valmaine Toki | Chair of the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; Professor at the University of Waikato, New Zealand

Professor Valmaine Toki is the Chair of the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and a Professor at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. She is of Ngāti Rehua, Ngātiwai, and Ngāpuhi descent. She holds a BA LLB (Hons) MBA, LLM and a PhD in law and has a current practicing certificate as a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court. As a He Ture Pumau scholar, she worked at Te Ohu Kaimoana, where she completed her MBA. Professor Toki joined Te Piringa after five years of lecturing at the Auckland Law School. She is the first New Zealander appointed to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues where she served two three-year terms, and, more recently, the first New Zealander appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council to the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Unsurprisingly, her area of research, writing, and teaching lies within the area of Indigenous rights. She has given public lectures and seminars globally including at Harvard Law School.

Moderators

Dr. Elena Pribytkova | Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore

Dr. Elena Pribytkova is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore. She received a Doctor of the Science of Law (J.S.D.) degree from Columbia Law School and is a Habilitation candidate at the Faculty of Law of the University of Basel. Her main research areas are Human Rights Law, Public International Law, Digital Technologies, Environmental Law, Sustainable Development, Comparative Law, and Legal and Political Philosophy. In particular, she focuses on the role of international law and human rights in reducing poverty and inequality as well as in promoting social, global, digital, and environmental (including climate) justice and sustainable development. Elena has held various research and teaching appointments at leading universities and research institutes all over the world, including Columbia Law School, New York University School of Law, University of Oxford, European University Institute, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg University, Swiss Institute of Comparative Law, University of Basel, University of Michigan Law School, and National University of Singapore.

Professor Hélène Tigroudja | Vice-Chair of the U.N. Human Rights Committee; Visiting Research Professor at the Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore; Professor at Aix-Marseille University, France

Professor Hélène Tigroudja is a Visiting Research Professor at the Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore and Professor of Public International Law at Aix-Marseille University (France). She has been serving as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee since 2019. She has published extensively on various topics dealing with human rights and international law. She recently co-authored the Commentary of the American Convention on Human Rights (OUP 2022) and a Treatise of International Human Rights Law (CUP 2025). In 2023, she gave a course at The Hague Academy of International Law on “Armed Conflicts and Human Rights” that will be published in the Collected Courses of The Hague Academy of International Law (forthcoming, Brill). Since 2002, she has acted regularly as an expert for the Council of Europe; UNESCO, and the European Union. Her focus in teaching and research ranges from international law, European law, international human rights law, international criminal law, and international migration law, with special focus on comparative approaches of universal and regional human rights mechanisms; remedies; States’ and International Organisations’ immunities; and the application of human rights in context of armed conflicts and situations of occupation.