In November 2026, the GHRH and partners convened the 2026 Expert Roundtable on Digital Human Rights Tracking Tools and Databases in Geneva and online.
On 3 November 2026, the Geneva Human Rights Hub (GHRH) convened its 2026 Expert Roundtable on Digital Human Rights Tracking Tools and Databases at the Palais des Nations in Geneva and online. Organised with the FNF Human Rights Hub, OHCHR, HURIDOCS, OMCT, HRMI and the CyberLaw Lab at Adam Mickiewicz University, the meeting brought developers, users and human rights stakeholders together under the theme “From AI experimentation to responsible integration”.
As human rights information grows across institutions and languages, the ability to find it, understand it and use it is becoming integral to effective human rights work. Digital tools can help turn dispersed evidence into knowledge that supports action. Their value depends on whose experiences the data reflect and how safely that information can be used. Bringing the people who develop these systems into sustained conversation with those who use them is therefore part of strengthening human rights practice itself.
The opening exchanges placed this purpose at the centre of the day. Technical development was connected to the practical work of identifying gaps and following implementation, with attention to protecting the people behind the data.
Experiences shared in the first session showed how AI is beginning to change the way human rights information is organised and accessed through digital solutions developed by different human rights actors. Work on extracting and classifying documents sat alongside efforts to search across languages and compare sources. One example involved flagging discrepancies between national assessments and international reports, creating a starting point for further investigation. Such applications brought the discussion back to how practitioners can judge the reliability of results and retain the context that gives data meaning.
That question carried into the session on moving from promising features to reliable everyday use. Analysing human rights content in biodiversity strategies and development plans illustrated how digital methods can bring a human rights perspective into wider policy debates. Other examples explored navigating institutional knowledge and preparing material for State reviews by UN human rights mechanisms. Across these experiences, usefulness depended on being able to return to the original source, understand the system’s limitations and fit the tool into the work of the people using it.
Afternoon working groups explored how tools could work together more effectively. Participants began tracing the relationships between existing systems and the data they hold, giving practical shape to the discussion on interoperability. Connecting different classifications could help users discover information across databases while preserving the perspectives and mandates behind each collection. This also raised questions about who controls the data and who can access it safely. Shared technical work, accompanied by investment in users’ skills, offered a direction for cooperation.
The ethical discussion went further, asking whether AI should be used at all for certain tasks. Participants considered where firm limits may be needed to protect confidentiality, independent judgment and the trust on which human rights work depends. Meaningful oversight requires people who can question and verify an output, especially when a system presents its answer with confidence. Exchanges on emotional labour brought these choices into focus. AI might help reduce exposure to distressing material, while listening to people’s experiences and exercising care raised deeper questions about what should remain human. These boundaries warrant deliberate discussion with the people whom the tools are intended to serve.
The closing exchanges connected these questions to practical cooperation through RightsX and the Geneva AI Summit 2027, through the Road to Geneva initiative. The group will reconvene online on 18 November 2026, during the RightsX Summit’s Solutions Festival. The session will advance a joint project mapping connections between human rights tools while exploring where AI can responsibly add value and where other approaches may be more appropriate. A short working note drawing on both roundtables will help define possible streams of cooperation, including interoperability pilots, practical safeguards and peer learning.
Today more than ever, human rights work is now closely connected to data science and engineering, and both fields have much to gain from a closer relationship. Human rights expertise brings legal grounding and an understanding of people’s lived realities. Data science and engineering help practitioners ask new questions of their evidence and build reliable ways to use it. The newly launched UN Student Team at ETH Zurich offers a welcome opportunity to put this collaboration into practice, connecting students’ technical expertise with the needs and experience of human rights practitioners. Sustained dialogue between these communities is essential so that substantive knowledge and technical expertise enrich one another and open new possibilities for human rights action.
Find out more about the day’s programme and the tools and databases represented at the roundtable here.
