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Human Rights and Corruption: Problems and Potential of Individualising a Systemic Problem

Anne Peters | Max Planck Institute

Making or breaking the cycle of corruption

Dilan Nenningsland | Norwegian University of Science and Technology

How does a novel database approach provide new insights into human rights debates and evolving trends?

Image courtesy of interviewee. December 18, 2024

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This video video discusses the historical context and ongoing challenges of human rights work within the United Nations (UN) since its founding in 1945. While the UN has been a key player in promoting human rights, it has faced criticisms such as geopolitical biases and the proliferation of human rights norms and institutions over time.

Key points include:

1. **Critiques of Proliferation**: There are concerns about the increasing number of human rights institutions and norms, leading to ambiguity and institutional overlap, which can hinder effective human rights promotion. Critics argue that this proliferation may inflate grievances framed as human rights issues, leading to a dilution of core rights.

2. **Empirical Research Gaps**: This video video emphasizes a lack of empirical studies assessing the existence of human rights proliferation, despite much theoretical work in this area. The authors highlight that while many critiques exist, there is scant evidence to support claims regarding the effects of proliferation on the actual practice of human rights.

3. **Methodological Innovations**: The authors propose using computational methods and natural language processing to analyze vast amounts of data from human rights discourse, shifting towards a more empirical and evidence-based approach. This video video methodology allows for a nuanced exploration of how the focus of human rights discussions has evolved over time.

4. **Findings and Trends**: The analysis reveals that certain topics within human rights, such as disability rights and business and human rights, have gained prominence, while others, like discussions surrounding armed conflict, have decreased. Importantly, discourse on sex and gender rights appears to maintain a balance, with attention shifting between various related issues.

5. **Systemic Issues**: This video video raises concerns about the UN system's funding challenges and the efficiency of overlapping bodies, questioning whether resources are being allocated to the most pressing human rights issues.

6. **Implications for Future Research**: The authors call for further exploration of how different human rights systems interact and adapt over time, as well as a deeper investigation into the implications of rights proliferation for actual human rights practice.

Overall, the text underscores the importance of transparency and accountability in the UN's human rights work and advocates for rigorous empirical research to better understand the implications of evolving human rights discourse.

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Here are five key points derived from the video:

1. **Historical Convideo and Critique of the UN's Human Rights Work**: The United Nations (UN) has been a prominent advocate for human rights since its establishment in 1945, but it has faced criticism for geopolitical biases and other aspects of its human rights work over the years.

2. **Human Rights Proliferation**: The video emphasizes a concern about the proliferation of human rights definitions and institutions, indicating that there are currently over 50 human rights bodies within the UN system, which may lead to overlapping responsibilities and differing interpretations of human rights law.

3. **Lack of Empirical Evidence**: There is a gap in empirical studies analyzing human rights proliferation, and the research discussed seeks to address this issue by employing computational methods to analyze a large corpus of human rights data, thereby providing new insights into prevailing trends.

4. **Changing Discourse Over Time**: The research aims to explore how the discourse surrounding human rights within the UN has evolved over time, including which topics gain or lose prominence. It discusses specific trends, such as the increasing recognition of disability rights and business and human rights, juxtaposed with a decline in discourse related to armed conflict.

5. **Methodological Contributions**: The study champions a methodological shift by combining qualitative and quantitative analyses of human rights documents through machine learning and natural language processing, advocating for a more empirical approach to understanding human rights discourse and promoting greater transparency regarding the UN's activities in this field.

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The video discusses various critiques and observations regarding the United Nations' work on human rights, particularly focusing on issues like human rights proliferation, institutional inefficiencies, and the need for empirical research. Below are some key quotes that encapsulate the primary themes and findings of the video:

1. **Foundational Role of the UN:**
- "Since the establishment of the UN, it was actually seen as a flagship of human rights."
- "Human rights appear several times in the UN Charter from 1945."

2. **Critique of Human Rights Work:**
- "Over the years, in parallel to the very important work that the UN did on human rights, it was also very much criticized on different aspects of its human rights work."
- "Geopolitical biases were often raised in this regard."

3. **Human Rights Proliferation:**
- "Human rights proliferation, meaning that we have over time much more human rights institutions, much more human rights that suddenly appear and are not agreed upon by everyone."
- "If in 1945, or in the first years of the UN, we had a handful of human rights institutions. Currently, we have more than 50…"

4. **Lack of Empirical Evidence:**
- "When we started researching that, we did not have a very good definition of what human right proliferation is."
- "There were almost no empirical studies that actually showed the existence of proliferation of human rights norms."

5. **Institutional Problems:**
- "You have a lot of bodies doing actually the same work with many problems that could arise from such a situation."
- "We have a treaty body in the convideo of prevention of torture, but we also have a working group on prevention of torture in a different convideo."

6. **Methodological Contributions:**
- "Using computational methods, we were able to analyze a very huge corpus of human rights and see what were the trends."
- "We wanted to see both how the discourse has changed over time, and we had several decades covered."

7. **Findings about Trends:**
- "When we first looked at our topics, we saw that there is a proliferation…of many topics that touch upon questions of sex and gender."
- "Two topics that we see that became very fashionable were disability rights and business and human rights."

8. **Implications for Future Research:**
- "I think that in many regards, this work might be opening the door to other work in that field."
- "Our work is very much exploratory in this field. We are promoting transparency of the system."

9. **Conclusion about the UN and Human Rights:**
- "The UN is an organization that affects practically all the people in the world, and let’s see what it does in the field of human rights."
- "Is it good or bad? I think it's for the system to decide."

These quotes highlight the main arguments and findings presented in the video, while also framing the discussion around the UN's human rights work and the critical need for empirical analysis and methodological development in this field.

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Since the establishment of the un, it was actually seen

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as a flagship of human rights.

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Uh, human rights appear several times in the UN charter

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from 1945.

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However, over the years, in parallel

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to the very important work that the UN did on human rights,

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it was also very much criticized on different aspects

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of its, human rights work.

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Um, for example, geopolitical biases, were, often,

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raised in this regard.

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And so, first and foremost, in this work, we wanted to,

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see, what is the, context of the,

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of the, discourse of, of the human rights in the un.

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What are those treaty bodies, those,

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all those human rights bodies actually doing in the un?

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So I think that this was actually, the starting point.

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And from there on, we also wanted to look on, two,

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specific, critiques that both appear in the,

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human rights context of the un, but also more generally.

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Uh, the first one was claims of,

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human rights proliferation, meaning

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that we have over time much more human rights institutions,

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much more, human rights that suddenly appear

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and are not agreed upon by everyone.

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And also certain, institutional problems that we see,

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mainly in the United Nations, for example, a lot of,

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bodies doing actual the same work with many problems

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that could be, could arise from, such a situation.

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And, for example, different, bodies,

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interpreting human rights law, differently

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or doing the same work in the system that is, very much,

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under-resourced.

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So this is what we actually wanted to explore.

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First critique that we actually meet is the, critique

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of human right proliferation that suddenly,

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just generally speaking, a lot

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of things are framed in context of human rights.

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So even before that, as I said

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before, we might, we have two dimensions,

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regarding the context of proliferation,

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which is first institutional proliferation,

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which can hardly be denied because if at for 1945,

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or in the first years of the end, we had a handful

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of humanized institutions.

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Currently, we have more than 50,

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with 50 bodies in our study.

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And this is, not,

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or not taken into account other,

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human rights institutions and international organizations

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and so on and so forth.

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So here, it's, pretty much unden denied.

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The, other, context of, proliferation is,

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very interesting because it talks about the number

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of human rights that increases.

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You have a lot of literature about this, about

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how it's problematic to have more and more human rights.

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However,

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what we actually found when we started researching that,

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so first of all, we did not have a very good, definition

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of, what human right proliferation is.

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And I think the Trin later will elaborate on, the method

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that we, chose to take.

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The, second thing is

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that there were almost no empirical studies

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that actually showed the existence of, proliferation

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of human rights norms.

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So there was, for example,

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professor Eric Posner from Chicago did a simple headcount

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of rights that emerged.

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However, it's pretty, simpl,

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simplistic one might say.

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And so, when we look at the context of a debate that is

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so much criticized about this proliferation of rights,

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going on, and almost no empirical evidence,

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no empirical assessment of this phenomena,

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this was a great gap in the literature that we,

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wanted to look into.

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And again, many of the, things

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that were said about human right proliferation were like,

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for example, there is human right, right inflation,

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that every grievance now is shaped as a human rights.

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For example, some claim

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that there can be a human right to be loved.

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So obviously we want people to be loved, not to feel alone.

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But then we have the question whether framing this problem

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in the context of legally binding human rights is the li

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right context, to cure the social grievance.

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And so, this is also one of the critique, also some

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of the critique word that it's creating a hierarchy

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of human rights, that organizations were acting ultra virus,

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beyond their original capacity

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by introducing those human rights.

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We have a lot of theoretical writing about it,

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almost no empirical evidence or assessment about this.

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So this is a very important point, for our work.

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And also, there's a structural problem

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that is sometimes criticized here.

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It's more like the specific UN context,

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although one might think about other human rights system

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where it might be relevant.

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So that, again, you have a lot of, human rights bodies

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inside the un, a lot of different mandates that sometimes

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do, pretty much the same thing.

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For example, we have a treaty body, in the context

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of prevention of torture,

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but we also have a working group on prevention

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of torture in a different, context.

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And so we have a few bodies that actually, for example,

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over, do go beyond their original mandate

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and touch upon other things.

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And then, so you have a system that, as I said

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before, is very much underfunded, has a lot of problems,

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and on top of all of that,

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you have too many bodies perhaps doing the same thing.

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And on the other hand, perhaps, also giving,

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different interpretation of human rights law.

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And then countries, for example, can use this

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to evade their human rights responsibilities.

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So, looked about, we looked on all those,

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problems that might arise from the system,

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and we wanted to assess, whether

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empirically this actually existed

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and what, how can we think better about

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this if it actually existed.

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Since there is a lack of empirical work in this field.

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I would say that our work,

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is very much exploratory in this field.

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Again, there are, a lot

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of literature about human right proliferation institutions.

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However, this was very much not, based upon,

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fact upon evidence.

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And so we actually, Aaron

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and I will talk more about this,

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using computational methods, we we're able

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to analyze a very huge, corpus of,

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human rights and see, what were the trends.

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So I think that in many regards, this work, might be,

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opening the door to other work in that field.

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For example, I would be interested to see in the context

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of the regional human rights, systems,

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how their focus changed over the years,

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whether there was proliferation there, how institutions

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inside those, that, framework interact

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with each other and so and so forth.

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So I think that's, in many regards, this,

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work opens a certain door

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and, invites other researchers to come in

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and also explore, other human rights systems

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and see whether we see the same trends.

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The UHRI database is a database that exists that,

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brings together the texts, the documents of all the bodies

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that Vera mentioned, the, special procedures

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and the UUPR and the treaty bodies.

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Um, so it

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provided us already with a great

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infrastructure to start with.

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What we are doing is harnessing tools from a machine

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learning and natural language processing.

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Uh, so, fields of computational analysis, in order

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to really parse through the textual data

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that is in these documents.

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Maybe I will frame it in this way.

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And until now, in legal analysis

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and in general, in the, you know, humanities

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and social sciences, there were two ways

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to go about research.

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You either did, performed,

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what we call close reading of documents.

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So you take a handful of documents

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and you really analyze them.

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Well, if I'm talking about the legal spirit,

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and you would look at one treaty

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and you analyze the sections,

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or you will look how it was interpreted in this

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and that mechanisms.

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Um, and that, of course, is a wonderful way to engage

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with data, but it's very limited in its scope.

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You can do it with handful of documents at the end.

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On the other hand, what we see is a turn to

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what we call the empirical legal studies,

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but that would often, result in statistics

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and headcounts, as BEA said.

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So we have this

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and that kind of recommendations, x amount of documents,

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but there was no engagement then with the content

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of the documents, the methods that we develop

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of this distant reading

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or distant listening to this, you know, huge amount

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of data of documents allows, if you want, what I'm trying

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to call it, allows this qualitative analysis,

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but on a big scale.

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So, quantitative analysis coupled

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with qualitative analysis.

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And I think that's what the method that we developed,

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you know, that's a contribution that it brings forth.

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And in that sense, as well said, it's opening the way

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for also, not only for more analysis

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of the human rights world,

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but of more analysis of that kind,

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in the legal sphere in general.

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So we took the existing, UHRI database, that is open

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for research, and we're very grateful for that.

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And what we did is first of all,

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parse it on the level of the topics.

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What are the topics that comprise the themes, topics

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that comprise the human rights discourse

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after some kind of a computational, trial and error

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or, and some, measurements that we apply.

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Uh, we focused on about 60 topics

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that comprise the human rights world.

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And if you, want,

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this was already the first major contribution of the paper,

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let's see what the human rights discourse is all about.

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We know what we think that it's about.

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But oftentimes when researchers engage

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with the human rights question, the proliferation,

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the structural criticisms, they will do it with their own,

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if you want research bias

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or research agenda they are wanting to find.

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Now, if the system is skewed toward this

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or that kind of, rights proliferation, for example,

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or rights agendas, for example, what we did is to,

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put the bias on hold for some time

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and ask the data to speak to us.

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So by running this topic modeling analysis, we could ask not

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what we want to find in the data,

227
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but what does the data entail that can maybe surprise us

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or, you know, teach us something new.

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So already on the level of the topical analysis,

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we had this kind of contribution

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of creating a bird's eye view of

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what is the thematic composition of the un un, un,

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human rights discourse.

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And then we added two more layers to

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that distinct chronic in the dia chronic level.

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So we wanted to see both

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how the discourse has changed over time,

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and we had several, decades covered,

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and also how it changes within each timeframe

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between the mechanisms.

241
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So one of the questions we were very much interested in,

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as Bill said, was to understand

243
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which mechanisms discuss which rights

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00:11:47.895 --> 00:11:50.275
and which rights gain more or,

245
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or lose momentum, gain more momentum,

246
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or lose more momentum as time evolves.

247
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Uh, what is, which rights are if you want?

248
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And that's where we bring in the analogy of the density

249
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of discourse, which rights are more in the hotspots

250
00:12:07.305 --> 00:12:10.165
and which are in the periphery of the discourse.

251
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Up until now, if you do a headcount, you could say, okay,

252
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we have, five rights, 15 rights, 50 rights.

253
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We think that that's not subtle enough.

254
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That's not nuanced enough.

255
00:12:21.445 --> 00:12:25.585
We want to understand both who speaks about certain rights,

256
00:12:25.585 --> 00:12:27.865
who in the sense of which mechanisms of the un,

257
00:12:28.405 --> 00:12:31.385
but also how much do they speak about it?

258
00:12:32.255 --> 00:12:35.635
So not just yes, no binary, yes, we mentioned it.

259
00:12:35.655 --> 00:12:37.635
No, we didn't. But how much does it,

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and how much attention does it get within the discourse?

261
00:12:41.465 --> 00:12:43.115
I'll start by saying that some

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of the findings are already on the level

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of just understanding what is out there.

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As I said, understanding what are the topics,

265
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understanding which topics trended up

266
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or down was already, you know, a finding in and of its own

267
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before we even delved into, you know, the, the, the,

268
00:12:58.495 --> 00:13:01.955
the minutia of, tracking a certain topic

269
00:13:02.095 --> 00:13:04.355
and seeing how much it goes up and or down.

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For me, one of the most interesting findings,

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I'll talk about that and maybe then will talk about the

272
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findings that she found, you know, more, robust and,

273
00:13:13.435 --> 00:13:16.315
and and appealing, is what happens

274
00:13:16.335 --> 00:13:18.075
around issues of sex and gender.

275
00:13:18.815 --> 00:13:21.995
So when we first look at our topics, we saw that there is

276
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a proliferation,

277
00:13:23.855 --> 00:13:26.235
or if you want, many topics

278
00:13:26.545 --> 00:13:28.355
that touch upon questions of sex

279
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and gender, whether through the perspectives of, women

280
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or women, and, sexuality or female or children.

281
00:13:37.295 --> 00:13:42.005
So, female children, sex trafficking, we,

282
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we saw the sex

283
00:13:43.425 --> 00:13:46.565
and gender topic coming up topic in several angle.

284
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And the question or the, the immediate criticism can be,

285
00:13:50.685 --> 00:13:53.005
okay, that's, you know, a proliferation issue.

286
00:13:53.005 --> 00:13:55.885
Of course, you know, we have so many treaties,

287
00:13:55.945 --> 00:13:58.525
so many bodies discussing the same issue,

288
00:13:58.945 --> 00:14:01.485
and I'm not drawing the normative conclusions.

289
00:14:01.505 --> 00:14:04.045
It can be good for the subject matter.

290
00:14:04.225 --> 00:14:05.725
It can be bad for the subject matter.

291
00:14:05.795 --> 00:14:08.725
That was wasn't what was we were interested in,

292
00:14:09.065 --> 00:14:12.165
we were interested in, in finding the factual

293
00:14:12.825 --> 00:14:14.165
infrastructure for that.

294
00:14:14.815 --> 00:14:18.515
But when we looked deeper, what we saw is

295
00:14:18.515 --> 00:14:20.755
that when one topic of sex

296
00:14:20.855 --> 00:14:24.445
and gender comes up up, another topic comes down

297
00:14:24.865 --> 00:14:25.925
of the same cluster.

298
00:14:26.595 --> 00:14:28.445
What it means is that at the end,

299
00:14:28.445 --> 00:14:30.325
there is a con conservation

300
00:14:30.385 --> 00:14:32.805
of energy law applying if you want.

301
00:14:32.935 --> 00:14:35.445
There is a certain amount of attention that is given

302
00:14:35.865 --> 00:14:39.725
to the overall topic of sex and gender.

303
00:14:40.425 --> 00:14:43.605
And if sometimes it goes more on the, for example,

304
00:14:43.865 --> 00:14:48.045
sex trafficking is more discussed, it comes, you know, it,

305
00:14:48.185 --> 00:14:51.605
it has a trade off with different topics.

306
00:14:51.785 --> 00:14:53.725
For example, with female education,

307
00:14:54.185 --> 00:14:55.685
and I'm giving this as an example,

308
00:14:55.825 --> 00:14:57.965
so you could really see the trade off.

309
00:14:58.065 --> 00:14:59.805
And for me it was eyeopening

310
00:15:00.075 --> 00:15:03.325
because against the criticism of per proliferation

311
00:15:03.745 --> 00:15:06.125
and too many discussions of the feminist issues,

312
00:15:06.505 --> 00:15:09.885
you could see that at the end, the system, you could say it

313
00:15:09.885 --> 00:15:12.005
for better or worse, but it balances itself.

314
00:15:12.345 --> 00:15:15.445
And the total overall amount of attention given

315
00:15:15.465 --> 00:15:18.085
to the topic remains pretty constant.

316
00:15:18.305 --> 00:15:20.005
For me. That was very revealing

317
00:15:20.005 --> 00:15:23.765
and really added a new dimension, theoretical

318
00:15:23.985 --> 00:15:27.965
and methodological dimension for thinking about criticisms

319
00:15:28.225 --> 00:15:29.765
of over feminization

320
00:15:29.985 --> 00:15:31.925
of the human rights discourse, et cetera.

321
00:15:32.305 --> 00:15:35.605
As a researcher who is generally also very much interested

322
00:15:35.945 --> 00:15:38.125
in, politics behind human rights,

323
00:15:38.585 --> 00:15:41.005
it was very interesting to see the results actually

324
00:15:41.065 --> 00:15:43.725
of the topics that, were discussed more over time

325
00:15:43.945 --> 00:15:45.565
and discussed less over time.

326
00:15:45.705 --> 00:15:48.885
So for instance, two topics that we see

327
00:15:48.885 --> 00:15:52.925
that became very fashionable were, disability rights

328
00:15:53.065 --> 00:15:54.525
and business and human rights.

329
00:15:55.305 --> 00:15:59.005
So, again, here we are very careful.

330
00:15:59.345 --> 00:16:03.045
We do not claim that our research, show shows

331
00:16:03.065 --> 00:16:04.245
or claims causality.

332
00:16:04.435 --> 00:16:09.045
However, for me, it's interesting to, think about why,

333
00:16:09.065 --> 00:16:11.005
for example, those topics became

334
00:16:11.105 --> 00:16:13.005
so popular, over the years.

335
00:16:14.105 --> 00:16:17.125
So, first of all, I think that,

336
00:16:17.125 --> 00:16:20.445
especially in the area of disability, I think

337
00:16:20.445 --> 00:16:24.165
that it's pretty much a safe topic for, countries

338
00:16:24.305 --> 00:16:25.805
and, the own rights bodies.

339
00:16:26.545 --> 00:16:31.285
And, there's all this theory that, countries,

340
00:16:31.505 --> 00:16:33.565
use, human rights in order

341
00:16:33.705 --> 00:16:35.445
to promote their international reputation.

342
00:16:35.625 --> 00:16:37.405
So here is a subject that, for example,

343
00:16:37.465 --> 00:16:40.685
unlike women's rights, which can be very problematic,

344
00:16:40.685 --> 00:16:42.565
sometimes religiously culturally,

345
00:16:42.905 --> 00:16:44.965
and sometimes it's harder for countries

346
00:16:44.965 --> 00:16:47.525
to change things there, sometimes they do not

347
00:16:47.525 --> 00:16:48.725
want to change a lot of things.

348
00:16:49.035 --> 00:16:53.045
Noticeability is, perhaps a much easier topic to show

349
00:16:53.045 --> 00:16:55.645
that yes, we are committed to the,

350
00:16:56.115 --> 00:16:59.605
near this new convention, that, I think it was,

351
00:16:59.665 --> 00:17:01.605
is introduced in 2006.

352
00:17:01.985 --> 00:17:05.485
We are, promoting our rights of, disabled people,

353
00:17:05.655 --> 00:17:07.565
supporting families of disabled people.

354
00:17:07.895 --> 00:17:08.965
We're doing things there.

355
00:17:09.185 --> 00:17:12.525
And so this, again, very, very important topic,

356
00:17:12.585 --> 00:17:14.805
but why exactly this topic and not others.

357
00:17:15.425 --> 00:17:18.605
So when I read some literature, I think that that

358
00:17:19.135 --> 00:17:20.645
might be one of the explanation

359
00:17:20.645 --> 00:17:24.205
because we're talking about pretty much a safe topic,

360
00:17:24.995 --> 00:17:27.765
also, for example, why we see more discourse

361
00:17:27.765 --> 00:17:29.285
about businesses, human rights.

362
00:17:29.305 --> 00:17:33.685
So here I'm not sure that it's as safe topic as,

363
00:17:33.685 --> 00:17:35.565
disability, because here we have a lot

364
00:17:35.565 --> 00:17:37.045
of economic interests there.

365
00:17:37.275 --> 00:17:41.325
However, here it's probably a reaction for a problem

366
00:17:41.435 --> 00:17:44.125
that exists quite a lot of years,

367
00:17:44.265 --> 00:17:46.765
but in recent years, it's much more prominent

368
00:17:46.915 --> 00:17:49.045
that international corporations are becoming

369
00:17:49.955 --> 00:17:51.005
very, very strong.

370
00:17:51.225 --> 00:17:55.165
Uh, they are, have much larger revenues than,

371
00:17:55.165 --> 00:17:56.685
perhaps some countries.

372
00:17:57.145 --> 00:18:00.405
And so what we do with that powerful entities

373
00:18:00.875 --> 00:18:03.805
that are percent not, parties

374
00:18:03.985 --> 00:18:06.325
to human rights instruments, there's a question of

375
00:18:06.625 --> 00:18:08.965
how committed they should be to human rights.

376
00:18:08.965 --> 00:18:12.805
However, we don't want them to, evade,

377
00:18:12.805 --> 00:18:15.365
their responsibilities and violate human rights.

378
00:18:15.745 --> 00:18:16.965
So what do we do there?

379
00:18:17.105 --> 00:18:19.045
So this question exists,

380
00:18:19.565 --> 00:18:22.245
I think really is discussed since the seventies,

381
00:18:22.745 --> 00:18:26.205
and it gained prominence in the beginning of the 2000 again,

382
00:18:26.205 --> 00:18:29.205
because of those, mass corporations gaining power.

383
00:18:29.705 --> 00:18:33.485
And this is a certain reaction to that, power

384
00:18:33.585 --> 00:18:35.005
of those huge, corporations

385
00:18:35.105 --> 00:18:37.485
and the huge problems that, it created.

386
00:18:38.465 --> 00:18:40.405
Um, an example for topic

387
00:18:40.435 --> 00:18:43.485
that became less fashionable, let's say.

388
00:18:43.505 --> 00:18:46.845
So let's, let's discuss in topics, in documents,

389
00:18:47.105 --> 00:18:51.125
and, by bodies is, for example, the cluster

390
00:18:51.225 --> 00:18:52.245
of armed conflict.

391
00:18:53.065 --> 00:18:57.045
So it's also like very much evident from our analysis.

392
00:18:57.065 --> 00:18:58.405
So we also tried to think

393
00:18:58.555 --> 00:19:00.005
what could be the explanation there.

394
00:19:00.185 --> 00:19:03.685
We also thought that perhaps here the explanation is that,

395
00:19:03.825 --> 00:19:05.565
the warrant terror obviously started

396
00:19:05.615 --> 00:19:07.925
after the nine 11 tax in 2001,

397
00:19:08.465 --> 00:19:12.765
and the methods used there, were very much criticized

398
00:19:12.945 --> 00:19:14.565
by, human rights institutions,

399
00:19:14.595 --> 00:19:16.685
including un human rights institutions.

400
00:19:17.185 --> 00:19:20.045
And so at first, the analysis starts in 2007.

401
00:19:20.265 --> 00:19:22.245
So we see a lot of that there.

402
00:19:22.585 --> 00:19:24.365
So a lot of discussions of this topic,

403
00:19:25.065 --> 00:19:27.885
and then over the years it became less relevant.

404
00:19:28.065 --> 00:19:30.165
And so that might be explanation why.

405
00:19:30.555 --> 00:19:31.925
Currently it's,

406
00:19:32.155 --> 00:19:34.845
less discussed both in documents and by bodies.

407
00:19:35.205 --> 00:19:37.205
I think what the article does, what this kind

408
00:19:37.205 --> 00:19:40.205
of research does is first of all, to show the viability of

409
00:19:40.735 --> 00:19:44.485
these tools from the field of NLP, machine learning of

410
00:19:44.485 --> 00:19:47.805
what we call generally AI in legal research.

411
00:19:48.345 --> 00:19:51.165
Uh, there was already an engagement

412
00:19:51.165 --> 00:19:53.285
with these tools in the broader legal sphere.

413
00:19:53.545 --> 00:19:57.045
We see it more and more, in, you know, invading the,

414
00:19:57.045 --> 00:19:58.645
the, the traditional methods,

415
00:19:59.305 --> 00:20:02.365
but not so much in the field of u human rights law

416
00:20:02.365 --> 00:20:04.805
and not so much in the broader field of international law.

417
00:20:05.105 --> 00:20:08.325
And I think what we showed here in the article is the

418
00:20:08.325 --> 00:20:10.325
viability of these tools, their validity

419
00:20:10.465 --> 00:20:13.405
and their usefulness in helping us make sense of

420
00:20:13.465 --> 00:20:16.165
how the fields look, field looks like,

421
00:20:16.545 --> 00:20:18.365
how a discourse looks like.

422
00:20:18.905 --> 00:20:22.725
Um, so for me, that's, an important implication

423
00:20:22.725 --> 00:20:25.605
of the research in terms of what it gives, you know,

424
00:20:25.665 --> 00:20:27.965
our scho, you know, how it broadens the way

425
00:20:27.965 --> 00:20:29.485
that we can conduct our scholarship.

426
00:20:30.025 --> 00:20:34.125
Uh, I think another, layer here is moving the

427
00:20:34.655 --> 00:20:39.325
field forward to a more, empirically, established

428
00:20:39.325 --> 00:20:43.485
or evidence-based research, not,

429
00:20:44.385 --> 00:20:49.005
counting on a single case study or an anecdotal evidence

430
00:20:49.145 --> 00:20:50.685
or anecdotal examples,

431
00:20:50.905 --> 00:20:55.565
but really using the big data corpus corpora

432
00:20:55.565 --> 00:20:58.485
or corpus, specifically in this case that are out there,

433
00:20:58.875 --> 00:21:02.125
that are produced by, international organizations

434
00:21:02.785 --> 00:21:03.965
for our own research.

435
00:21:04.525 --> 00:21:08.445
I think that's a really important, moving forward

436
00:21:08.795 --> 00:21:12.445
that can be a really important stepping stone in making our

437
00:21:12.725 --> 00:21:15.885
research more connected to the resources out there.

438
00:21:16.185 --> 00:21:18.565
And for me, that's a huge implication on the

439
00:21:18.565 --> 00:21:20.605
methodological, level.

440
00:21:20.945 --> 00:21:25.165
As we said in the beginning, I think that, the, one

441
00:21:25.165 --> 00:21:29.845
of the, big contributions of this study is to,

442
00:21:29.945 --> 00:21:32.685
the promoting transparency of the system, meaning

443
00:21:32.755 --> 00:21:35.085
that the UN is an organization

444
00:21:35.085 --> 00:21:38.045
that affect practically all the people in the world,

445
00:21:38.665 --> 00:21:41.965
and let's see what it does in the field of human rights,

446
00:21:42.275 --> 00:21:44.725
what we promote, what are we talking about?

447
00:21:45.265 --> 00:21:48.645
And so I think that people, government, they deserve

448
00:21:48.645 --> 00:21:49.925
to know what's going under there.

449
00:21:50.465 --> 00:21:53.085
So here's, just like putting it out there.

450
00:21:53.555 --> 00:21:56.965
This is what the UN is dealing with,

451
00:21:56.965 --> 00:21:58.525
how it's changed over the years.

452
00:21:59.305 --> 00:22:01.365
And, so just to know that,

453
00:22:01.865 --> 00:22:04.845
and given that we know that we can also analyze this,

454
00:22:05.025 --> 00:22:08.645
for example, again, we have evidence

455
00:22:08.745 --> 00:22:11.005
for human rights proliferation that yes,

456
00:22:11.705 --> 00:22:13.845
we see more topics discussed over the years.

457
00:22:14.115 --> 00:22:17.605
Some have clusters have this preservation of, power.

458
00:22:18.425 --> 00:22:20.765
So, then next,

459
00:22:20.945 --> 00:22:23.525
and again, we do not touch upon this on this paper,

460
00:22:23.705 --> 00:22:26.285
but it's also not something that we wanted to do.

461
00:22:26.305 --> 00:22:30.125
But here, I think, policymakers, academics need

462
00:22:30.125 --> 00:22:31.885
to think, is that a good or bad thing?

463
00:22:32.145 --> 00:22:35.685
We don't necessarily take a stance on that, we just say yes.

464
00:22:36.105 --> 00:22:39.525
Uh, the system becomes dense over the years we're

465
00:22:39.525 --> 00:22:40.565
discussing more topics.

466
00:22:40.985 --> 00:22:44.445
Um, and so, so on so forth, is it good or bad?

467
00:22:44.725 --> 00:22:47.325
I think it's for the system, to,

468
00:22:47.425 --> 00:22:49.805
and people affected by this, which is all of us

469
00:22:50.145 --> 00:22:52.885
to think about it, whether, we want

470
00:22:53.545 --> 00:22:56.125
for the un human rights institutions to move in

471
00:22:56.125 --> 00:22:57.845
that direction, or do we need

472
00:22:57.845 --> 00:23:00.325
to think again about those things.

473
00:23:00.905 --> 00:23:03.005
Um, another thing that I also,

474
00:23:03.065 --> 00:23:06.965
ta mentioned a few times is the overlap, between the,

475
00:23:06.985 --> 00:23:09.365
responsibilities of different bodies.

476
00:23:09.665 --> 00:23:12.565
So, recently, a few months ago,

477
00:23:12.565 --> 00:23:14.645
there was a real question whether the,

478
00:23:14.645 --> 00:23:16.245
committee on the rights of the child,

479
00:23:16.245 --> 00:23:17.965
which is a very important treaty body

480
00:23:17.965 --> 00:23:20.645
that's promoting children rights, can,

481
00:23:21.315 --> 00:23:23.565
have its session because they did not have the

482
00:23:23.565 --> 00:23:24.765
funds to have a session.

483
00:23:25.345 --> 00:23:28.445
And so, just to think about that, a committee

484
00:23:28.445 --> 00:23:31.485
that is promoting rights, so of children which are

485
00:23:31.545 --> 00:23:33.885
so vulnerable, cannot meet

486
00:23:34.045 --> 00:23:36.165
because of, financial problems,

487
00:23:36.615 --> 00:23:40.085
makes you think whether perhaps the system should think

488
00:23:40.085 --> 00:23:43.245
about rearranging itself, that perhaps like a lot

489
00:23:43.245 --> 00:23:46.565
of bodies are talking about fashionable topics, for example,

490
00:23:46.595 --> 00:23:48.725
that disability, again, it's an important topic,

491
00:23:49.265 --> 00:23:53.245
but some very important things, for example, like the rights

492
00:23:53.245 --> 00:23:56.325
of the child might not be as much discussed

493
00:23:56.325 --> 00:23:59.645
because the system does not monitor itself very well.

494
00:24:00.065 --> 00:24:03.605
So here again, both the UN system and policymakers

495
00:24:03.705 --> 00:24:06.565
and so on, need to do their own thinking,

496
00:24:06.655 --> 00:24:09.525
given the financial constraints of the system

497
00:24:09.745 --> 00:24:13.525
and think what is the optimal, what is the better solution,

498
00:24:13.665 --> 00:24:14.485
to those things.

Critiques and Challenges in UN Human Rights Discourse

00:00:00 - Since the establishment of the un, it was actually seen as a flagship of human rights. human rights appear several times in the UN charter from 1945. However, over the years, in parallel to the very important work that the UN did on human rights, it was also very much criticized on different aspects of its, human rights work. for example, geopolitical biases, were, often, raised in this regard. And so, first and foremost, in this work, we wanted to,

00:00:38 - of the, discourse of, of the human rights in the un. What are those treaty bodies, those, all those human rights bodies actually doing in the un? So I think that this was actually, the starting point. And from there on, we also wanted to look on, two, specific, critiques that both appear in the, human rights context of the un, but also more generally.

00:01:07 - human rights proliferation, meaning that we have over time much more human rights institutions, much more, human rights that suddenly appear and are not agreed upon by everyone. And also certain, institutional problems that we see, mainly in the United Nations, for example, a lot of, bodies doing actual the same work with many problems that could be, could arise from, such a situation.

Challenges of Human Rights Proliferation

00:01:41 - interpreting human rights law, differently or doing the same work in the system that is, very much, under-resourced. So this is what we actually wanted to explore. First critique that we actually meet is the, critique of human right proliferation that suddenly, just generally speaking, a lot of things are framed in context of human rights. So even before that, as I said before, we might, we have two dimensions,

00:02:12 - which is first institutional proliferation, which can hardly be denied because if at for 1945, or in the first years of the end, we had a handful of humanized institutions. Currently, we have more than 50, with 50 bodies in our study. And this is, not, or not taken into account other, human rights institutions and international organizations and so on and so forth. So here, it's, pretty much unden denied.

00:02:46 - very interesting because it talks about the number of human rights that increases. You have a lot of literature about this, about how it's problematic to have more and more human rights. However, what we actually found when we started researching that, so first of all, we did not have a very good, definition of, what human right proliferation is. And I think the Trin later will elaborate on, the method

Addressing the Gap in Human Rights Proliferation Research

00:03:14 - The, second thing is that there were almost no empirical studies that actually showed the existence of, proliferation of human rights norms. So there was, for example, professor Eric Posner from Chicago did a simple headcount of rights that emerged. However, it's pretty, simpl, simplistic one might say. And so, when we look at the context of a debate that is so much criticized about this proliferation of rights, going on, and almost no empirical evidence,

00:03:47 - this was a great gap in the literature that we, wanted to look into. And again, many of the, things that were said about human right proliferation were like, for example, there is human right, right inflation, that every grievance now is shaped as a human rights. For example, some claim that there can be a human right to be loved. So obviously we want people to be loved, not to feel alone. But then we have the question whether framing this problem

00:04:20 - right context, to cure the social grievance. And so, this is also one of the critique, also some of the critique word that it's creating a hierarchy of human rights, that organizations were acting ultra virus, beyond their original capacity by introducing those human rights. We have a lot of theoretical writing about it, almost no empirical evidence or assessment about this. So this is a very important point, for our work.

Challenges of Human Rights Proliferation within the UN System

00:04:52 - that is sometimes criticized here. It's more like the specific UN context, although one might think about other human rights system where it might be relevant. So that, again, you have a lot of, human rights bodies inside the un, a lot of different mandates that sometimes do, pretty much the same thing. For example, we have a treaty body, in the context of prevention of torture, but we also have a working group on prevention of torture in a different, context.

00:05:26 - over, do go beyond their original mandate and touch upon other things. And then, so you have a system that, as I said before, is very much underfunded, has a lot of problems, and on top of all of that, you have too many bodies perhaps doing the same thing. And on the other hand, perhaps, also giving, different interpretation of human rights law. And then countries, for example, can use this

00:05:55 - So, looked about, we looked on all those, problems that might arise from the system, and we wanted to assess, whether empirically this actually existed and what, how can we think better about this if it actually existed. Since there is a lack of empirical work in this field. I would say that our work, is very much exploratory in this field. Again, there are, a lot of literature about human right proliferation institutions. However, this was very much not, based upon,

Exploring Trends in Human Rights Through Computational Analysis

00:06:30 - And so we actually, Aaron and I will talk more about this, using computational methods, we we're able to analyze a very huge, corpus of, human rights and see, what were the trends. So I think that in many regards, this work, might be, opening the door to other work in that field. For example, I would be interested to see in the context of the regional human rights, systems,

00:07:00 - whether there was proliferation there, how institutions inside those, that, framework interact with each other and so and so forth. So I think that's, in many regards, this, work opens a certain door and, invites other researchers to come in and also explore, other human rights systems and see whether we see the same trends. The UHRI database is a database that exists that, brings together the texts, the documents of all the bodies

00:07:35 - and the UUPR and the treaty bodies. so it provided us already with a great infrastructure to start with. What we are doing is harnessing tools from a machine learning and natural language processing. so, fields of computational analysis, in order to really parse through the textual data that is in these documents. Maybe I will frame it in this way.

Research Approaches in Humanities: Balancing Close Reading and Empirical Analysis

00:08:05 - and in general, in the, you know, humanities and social sciences, there were two ways to go about research. You either did, performed, what we call close reading of documents. So you take a handful of documents and you really analyze them. Well, if I'm talking about the legal spirit, and you would look at one treaty and you analyze the sections, or you will look how it was interpreted in this and that mechanisms. and that, of course, is a wonderful way to engage

00:08:35 - You can do it with handful of documents at the end. On the other hand, what we see is a turn to what we call the empirical legal studies, but that would often, result in statistics and headcounts, as BEA said. So we have this and that kind of recommendations, x amount of documents, but there was no engagement then with the content of the documents, the methods that we develop of this distant reading or distant listening to this, you know, huge amount

00:09:11 - to call it, allows this qualitative analysis, but on a big scale. So, quantitative analysis coupled with qualitative analysis. And I think that's what the method that we developed, you know, that's a contribution that it brings forth. And in that sense, as well said, it's opening the way for also, not only for more analysis of the human rights world, but of more analysis of that kind,

Analyzing Human Rights Discourse Through Topic Modeling

00:09:39 - So we took the existing, UHRI database, that is open for research, and we're very grateful for that. And what we did is first of all, parse it on the level of the topics. What are the topics that comprise the themes, topics that comprise the human rights discourse after some kind of a computational, trial and error or, and some, measurements that we apply. we focused on about 60 topics

00:10:10 - And if you, want, this was already the first major contribution of the paper, let's see what the human rights discourse is all about. We know what we think that it's about. But oftentimes when researchers engage with the human rights question, the proliferation, the structural criticisms, they will do it with their own, if you want research bias or research agenda they are wanting to find. Now, if the system is skewed toward this

00:10:42 - or rights agendas, for example, what we did is to, put the bias on hold for some time and ask the data to speak to us. So by running this topic modeling analysis, we could ask not what we want to find in the data, but what does the data entail that can maybe surprise us or, you know, teach us something new. So already on the level of the topical analysis, we had this kind of contribution

Analyzing Trends in UN Human Rights Discourse

00:11:12 - what is the thematic composition of the un un, un, human rights discourse. And then we added two more layers to that distinct chronic in the dia chronic level. So we wanted to see both how the discourse has changed over time, and we had several, decades covered, and also how it changes within each timeframe between the mechanisms. So one of the questions we were very much interested in,

00:11:44 - which mechanisms discuss which rights and which rights gain more or, or lose momentum, gain more momentum, or lose more momentum as time evolves. what is, which rights are if you want? And that's where we bring in the analogy of the density of discourse, which rights are more in the hotspots and which are in the periphery of the discourse. Up until now, if you do a headcount, you could say, okay,

00:12:18 - We think that that's not subtle enough. That's not nuanced enough. We want to understand both who speaks about certain rights, who in the sense of which mechanisms of the un, but also how much do they speak about it? So not just yes, no binary, yes, we mentioned it. No, we didn't. But how much does it, and how much attention does it get within the discourse? I'll start by saying that some of the findings are already on the level

Trends in Human Rights Discourse: Gender and Proliferation

00:12:47 - As I said, understanding what are the topics, understanding which topics trended up or down was already, you know, a finding in and of its own before we even delved into, you know, the, the, the, the minutia of, tracking a certain topic and seeing how much it goes up and or down. For me, one of the most interesting findings, I'll talk about that and maybe then will talk about the findings that she found, you know, more, robust and, and and appealing, is what happens

00:13:18 - So when we first look at our topics, we saw that there is a proliferation, or if you want, many topics that touch upon questions of sex and gender, whether through the perspectives of, women or women, and, sexuality or female or children. So, female children, sex trafficking, we, we saw the sex and gender topic coming up topic in several angle.

00:13:50 - okay, that's, you know, a proliferation issue. Of course, you know, we have so many treaties, so many bodies discussing the same issue, and I'm not drawing the normative conclusions. It can be good for the subject matter. It can be bad for the subject matter. That was wasn't what was we were interested in, we were interested in, in finding the factual infrastructure for that. But when we looked deeper, what we saw is

Dynamic Shifts in Human Rights Discourse

00:14:20 - and gender comes up up, another topic comes down of the same cluster. What it means is that at the end, there is a con conservation of energy law applying if you want. There is a certain amount of attention that is given to the overall topic of sex and gender. And if sometimes it goes more on the, for example, sex trafficking is more discussed, it comes, you know, it, it has a trade off with different topics.

00:14:54 - and I'm giving this as an example, so you could really see the trade off. And for me it was eyeopening because against the criticism of per proliferation and too many discussions of the feminist issues, you could see that at the end, the system, you could say it for better or worse, but it balances itself. And the total overall amount of attention given to the topic remains pretty constant. For me. That was very revealing and really added a new dimension, theoretical

00:15:28 - of over feminization of the human rights discourse, et cetera. As a researcher who is generally also very much interested in, politics behind human rights, it was very interesting to see the results actually of the topics that, were discussed more over time and discussed less over time. So for instance, two topics that we see that became very fashionable were, disability rights and business and human rights.

Popularity of Human Rights Topics: Safe Choices for Countries

00:15:59 - We do not claim that our research, show shows or claims causality. However, for me, it's interesting to, think about why, for example, those topics became so popular, over the years. So, first of all, I think that, especially in the area of disability, I think that it's pretty much a safe topic for, countries and, the own rights bodies.

00:16:31 - use, human rights in order to promote their international reputation. So here is a subject that, for example, unlike women's rights, which can be very problematic, sometimes religiously culturally, and sometimes it's harder for countries to change things there, sometimes they do not want to change a lot of things. Noticeability is, perhaps a much easier topic to show that yes, we are committed to the, near this new convention, that, I think it was,

00:17:01 - We are, promoting our rights of, disabled people, supporting families of disabled people. We're doing things there. And so this, again, very, very important topic, but why exactly this topic and not others. So when I read some literature, I think that that might be one of the explanation because we're talking about pretty much a safe topic, also, for example, why we see more discourse about businesses, human rights. So here I'm not sure that it's as safe topic as,

Corporate Power and Human Rights Responsibilities

00:17:35 - of economic interests there. However, here it's probably a reaction for a problem that exists quite a lot of years, but in recent years, it's much more prominent that international corporations are becoming very, very strong. they are, have much larger revenues than, perhaps some countries. And so what we do with that powerful entities that are percent not, parties

00:18:06 - how committed they should be to human rights. However, we don't want them to, evade, their responsibilities and violate human rights. So what do we do there? So this question exists, I think really is discussed since the seventies, and it gained prominence in the beginning of the 2000 again, because of those, mass corporations gaining power. And this is a certain reaction to that, power of those huge, corporations

00:18:38 - an example for topic that became less fashionable, let's say. So let's, let's discuss in topics, in documents, and, by bodies is, for example, the cluster of armed conflict. So it's also like very much evident from our analysis. So we also tried to think what could be the explanation there. We also thought that perhaps here the explanation is that, the warrant terror obviously started

Evolving Discourses in Human Rights and AI Integration

00:19:08 - and the methods used there, were very much criticized by, human rights institutions, including un human rights institutions. And so at first, the analysis starts in 2007. So we see a lot of that there. So a lot of discussions of this topic, and then over the years it became less relevant. And so that might be explanation why. Currently it's, less discussed both in documents and by bodies. I think what the article does, what this kind

00:19:40 - these tools from the field of NLP, machine learning of what we call generally AI in legal research. there was already an engagement with these tools in the broader legal sphere. We see it more and more, in, you know, invading the, the, the traditional methods, but not so much in the field of u human rights law and not so much in the broader field of international law. And I think what we showed here in the article is the

00:20:10 - and their usefulness in helping us make sense of how the fields look, field looks like, how a discourse looks like. so for me, that's, an important implication of the research in terms of what it gives, you know, our scho, you know, how it broadens the way that we can conduct our scholarship. I think another, layer here is moving the field forward to a more, empirically, established

Leveraging Big Data for Human Rights Research Transparency

00:20:44 - counting on a single case study or an anecdotal evidence or anecdotal examples, but really using the big data corpus corpora or corpus, specifically in this case that are out there, that are produced by, international organizations for our own research. I think that's a really important, moving forward that can be a really important stepping stone in making our

00:21:16 - And for me, that's a huge implication on the methodological, level. As we said in the beginning, I think that, the, one of the, big contributions of this study is to, the promoting transparency of the system, meaning that the UN is an organization that affect practically all the people in the world, and let's see what it does in the field of human rights, what we promote, what are we talking about?

00:21:48 - to know what's going under there. So here's, just like putting it out there. This is what the UN is dealing with, how it's changed over the years. And, so just to know that, and given that we know that we can also analyze this, for example, again, we have evidence for human rights proliferation that yes, we see more topics discussed over the years. Some have clusters have this preservation of, power.

Evaluating the Effectiveness and Priorities of UN Human Rights Institutions

00:22:20 - and again, we do not touch upon this on this paper, but it's also not something that we wanted to do. But here, I think, policymakers, academics need to think, is that a good or bad thing? We don't necessarily take a stance on that, we just say yes. the system becomes dense over the years we're discussing more topics. and so, so on so forth, is it good or bad? I think it's for the system, to, and people affected by this, which is all of us

00:22:53 - for the un human rights institutions to move in that direction, or do we need to think again about those things. another thing that I also, ta mentioned a few times is the overlap, between the, responsibilities of different bodies. So, recently, a few months ago, there was a real question whether the, committee on the rights of the child, which is a very important treaty body that's promoting children rights, can,

00:23:23 - funds to have a session. And so, just to think about that, a committee that is promoting rights, so of children which are so vulnerable, cannot meet because of, financial problems, makes you think whether perhaps the system should think about rearranging itself, that perhaps like a lot of bodies are talking about fashionable topics, for example, that disability, again, it's an important topic, but some very important things, for example, like the rights

Enhancing Self-Monitoring in the UN System

00:24:13 - because the system does not monitor itself very well. So here again, both the UN system and policymakers and so on, need to do their own thinking, given the financial constraints of the system and think what is the optimal, what is the better solution, to those things.

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