Technology and Economic and Social Rights

Abstract

Although the effects of new technologies on human rights has received considerable attention in recent years, this attention has focused nearly exclusively on civil and political rights. However, the problems that technologies pose is neither new, nor limited to freedom of expression and privacy. Economic and social rights have been affected in profound ways by decades of experimentation with new technological innovations. Using analytical tools from both human rights and science and technology studies, this chapter articulates a human rights-based approach to analyzing the effects of technology, and it applies that approach to historical and current examples of innovation deployed in the context of economic and social rights, including vaccines, the green revolution, the digital welfare state, the use of indicators in human rights, and machine learning/big data. It argues that despite the promise that these innovations hold, their use has tended to divert resources away from system-level reforms and the social determinants of rights. The chapter argues that this shift will only become more pronounced and will be less amenable to democratic control and accountability, as states deploy new technologies such as artificial intelligence in meeting their obligations with respect to economic and social rights.

Keywords: human rights, science and technology studies, STS, economic and social rights, ESR, vaccines, green revolution, indicators, digital welfare state, machine learning, big data