Expert Roundtable
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As digital transformation accelerates, the implementation of human rights recommendations increasingly depends on accessible, interoperable and trusted digital tools. Governments, UN entities, civil society organizations and human rights defenders are increasingly using digital human rights tracking tools and databases to monitor recommendations, structure information, support reporting and follow implementation. Yet these systems often remain fragmented, operate in silos and provide uneven access, particularly for civil society and human rights defenders.
This 45-minute WSIS Policy Dialogue will examine how digital tools, data systems and responsible AI can help move human rights information from data to implementation. The discussion will focus on practical experiences with existing tools, including the National Recommendations Tracking Database developed with OHCHR support as well on academic pilot projects focused on leveraging natural language processing and generative AI to build practical, accessible tools for human rights monitoring. It will explore how such tools can strengthen institutional coordination, improve access to information, support recommendation tracking and enable more effective follow-up.
The session will also address the safeguards required to ensure that AI-supported functionalities, including assisted tagging, clustering, semantic search, multilingual access and metadata extraction, are deployed responsibly, with attention to transparency, accountability, human oversight, data protection and inclusive access.
• Opening remarks: Michaela Lissowsky, Director, Friedrich Naumann Foundation
• Roberto Céspedes, Chargé d’Affairs, Mission of Costa Rica to the UN in Geneva
• Marie-Eve Boyer, Human Rights Officer, Capacity Building Programme, OHCHR
• Łukasz Szoszkiewicz, Assistant Professor, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań and Director for European Affairs, The Neurorights Foundation
• Moderator: Domenico Zipoli, Head of Programmes, Geneva Human Rights Hub
The session will include at least 15 minutes of Q&A with participants in the room on how UN actors, governments, civil society and technical partners can make responsible AI-integration into digital human rights monitoring systems more accessible and ultimately more useful for human rights implementation.
The session is organized by FNF Human Rights Hub, the Geneva Human Rights Hub and OHCHR.
