LAW5806 Technology, justice and human rights

This unit will examine how existing and future technologies (data, machine learning, AI and surveillance) impact the human rights of individuals, with particular emphasis on freedom of expression and association and freedom from discrimination. It will then turn to examine the ways in which a human rights framework may be applied to the regulation of these technologies. It will compare and contrast the various human rights law protections which may be implemented in order to maximise the social benefits and minimise the risks, associated with these new technologies. In particular, it will analyse the existing institutional and domestic architecture on human rights and discuss ways in which these can be utilized to provide scrutiny and oversight of technological developments. This will include a deep analysis of treaty law and statements of UN Human Rights Committee and Special Rapporteurs which are relevant to technology. At the domestic level, it will examine and compare and contrast the way in which existing human rights oversight mechanisms have dealt with technology in Australia (such as the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights and the various State and Territory human rights charter regimes). It will also look to the future to assess the law reform proposals for ensuring the human rights compliance of technologies, including policy recommendations made by Australian bodies (eg the Australian Human Rights Commissions Inquiry on Human Rights and Technology) and international and domestic civil society organisations (Amnesty International, Digital Rights Watch etc). Students will asked to deconstruct and question these reform proposals and exercise legal creativity by formulating reform proposals of their own as part of the assessment.