Challenges of United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in Technological Contexts: a View from the Evolution of Human Rights

Abstract

This contribution aims to study and address the implications of the development of new technologies for the realization of human rights, under the UNGPs and the regulatory frameworks established within national and regional contexts, as well as on the comprehension and realization of the obligations and responsibilities of the actors involved, especially of the States, companies, and even individuals as customers. For this, some examples of risks and impacts of technological businesses developments will be analyzed in the light of three groups of rights: i. civil and political rights, ii. economic, social, and cultural rights, and iii. collective rights. This will lead to understand existing challenges to optimize digital transformation and the need to rethink the effectiveness of mandatory human rights due diligence as it is known up to now, considering Human Rights as an open catalog that should be considered as the ultima ratio in contexts where tensions between technology and human rights are present.

Keywords

• human rights
• globalization
• scientific development
• un guiding principles
• business