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Mark Wolf and Richard J. Goldstone. 4/4/2020. “Coronavirus Presents Bonanza for Kleptocrats.” The Boston Globe. See full text.Abstract

In order to keep kleptocrats accountable, an International Anti-Corruption Court must be established. 

Very little is certain about the coronavirus, and we are only judges, not prophets. However, we can confidently predict that the response to the pandemic will be a bonanza for kleptocrats — an opportunity for the corrupt leaders of many countries to further enrich themselves.

Governments are poised to provide trillions of dollars to counter the pandemic, without even the usual, often ineffective, safeguards to assure that the funds are properly spent. The coronavirus will, therefore, provide additional compelling proof that the world needs an International Anti-Corruption Court to punish and deter kleptocrats who enjoy impunity in the countries they rule.

 



Sushma Raman and Mathias Risse. 5/30/2018. “Corruption and Human Rights: The Linkages, the Challenges and Paths for Progress Symposium Report.” In Corruption and Human Rights - The Linkages, the Challenges, and Paths for Progress. Cambridge, MA: Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. See full report. Abstract

Corruption and Human Rights: The Linkages, the Challenges and Paths for Progress Symposium Report 

This symposium was conceived as a way for us to convene leaders and academics from the human rights and anti-corruption movements, which have traditionally operated as separate communities of practice, to explore the linkages between the issues we work on and consider approaches to advance our work together. We hope that this symposium will not only help to inform and shape a deeper involvement of the Carr Center into the issue of corruption, but will also be the start of an ongoing collaboration between the human rights and anti-corruption communities.



Luís Roberto Barroso. 4/4/2019. “Countermajoritarian, Representative, and Enlightened: The Roles of Constitutional Courts in Democracies.” The American Journal of Comparitive Law. See full text.Abstract

Justice Luis Roberto Barroso's latest article on Countermajoritarian, Representative, and Enlightened: The Roles of Constitutional Courts in Democracies.

The primary purpose of this article is to examine the roles of constitutional courts in contemporary democracies. It aims to demonstrate that such courts perform, in addition to the countermajoritarian role traditionally recognized in constitutional theory, two other roles: representative and, occasionally, enlightened. In the construction of the argument, the Article analyzes the phenomena of the judicialization of politics and judicial activism, as well as the issue of the difficult demarcation of the border between law and politics in the complex and plural societies of today. Although it presents several examples of the constitutional experience of the United States, the Article’s conclusions are generalizable, looking at the roles of constitutional courts from the perspective of a global constitutionalism whose categories have become common practice in the democracies of the world.

See full text. 



John Shattuck and Mathias Risse. 2/10/2021. “Criminal Justice and Public Safety.” Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the United States, 011. See full text.Abstract

Starting with the Nixon administration in the early 1970s, and gaining steam throughout the next decade, the prevailing view on criminal justice was that “tough on crime laws make crime rates go down.” That sentiment was predicated on the notion that criminals were not being sufficiently punished for their offenses, and that sentences must be increased—including mandatory minimums and “three strikes laws”—both to remove criminals from communities, and to deter others from committing crimes. The incarceration rate more than tripled between 1980 and its peak in 2008, from 310 to 1,000 prisoners per 100,000 adults—some 2.3 million people in all. Today, the United States leads the world in incarceration, with a rate more than 4 times that of comparable democracies in Western Europe.

Reform of the criminal justice system must take into account each stage of the process, respecting the due process rights of individuals throughout their interaction with the system while at the same time bringing criminals to justice and improving overall public safety.

Read the paper.

See other issues of the Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities series.



Alix Dunn. 5/7/2019. “Critical Skill for Nonprofits in the Digital Age: Technical Intuition.” Stanford Social Innovation Review. Listen to the Interview.Abstract

Not everyone needs to become a tech expert, but all activists and nonprofit leaders must develop skills to inquire about, decide on, and demand technological change. Tech Fellow Alix Dunn talks to Stanford's Social Innovation Podcast. 

In a world where the pace of organizational learning is often slower than the pace of technological change, activists and nonprofit leaders must develop their “technical intuition.” Not everyone needs to become a tech expert, explains Alix Dunn, of the consulting firm Computer Says Maybe, but this ongoing process of imagining, inquiring about, deciding on, and demanding technological change is critical.

In this recording from the Stanford Social Innovation Review's 2019 Data on Purpose conference, Dunn walks through her guidelines to help anyone to develop these skills.



Mathias Risse. 8/17/2020. “Dangerous Science: Might Population Genetics or Artificial Intelligence Undermine Philosophical Ideas about Equality?” Carr Center Discussion Paper Series, 2020-010. See full text.Abstract

This paper was prepared for an interdisciplinary conference on Gefährliche Forschung? (Dangerous Science?) held at the University of Cologne in February 2020 and is scheduled to appear in a volume of contributions from that event edited by Wilfried Hinsch and Susanne Brandstätter, the organizers, and to be published by de Gruyter. The paper delves into the question proposed to me—might population genetics or artificial intelligence undermine philosophical ideas about equality—without locating the context of this debate or offering a preview of its contents. The first section discusses the ideal of equality, the next two talk about genetics in the context of responses to racism, and the remaining two speak about possible changes that might come from the development of general Artificial Intelligence.

Read full text here. 



Mark Latonero. 3/25/2019. “Deepfakes are Solvable—but Don’t Forget That “shallowfakes” are Already Pervasive.” MIT Technology Review. See full text.Abstract

New article features Carr Center Technology and Human Rights Fellow Mark Latonero.


" Mark Latonero, human rights lead at Data & Society, a nonprofit institute dedicated to the applications of data, agreed that technology companies should be doing more to tackle such issues. While Microsoft, Google, Twitter, and others have employees focused on human rights, he said, there was so much more they should be doing before they deploy technologies—not after."



Luís Roberto Barroso and Aline Osorio. 1/2019. “Democracy, Political Crisis, and Constitutional Jurisdiction.” In Judicial Power: How Constitutional Courts Affect Political Transformation, Pp. 163-182. Cambridge University Press. See full text.Abstract

Read Justice Luis Roberto Barroso's latest chapter on Judicial Power: How Constitutional Courts Affect Political Transformation. 

 



Mark Latonero, Keith Hiatt, Antonella Napolitano, Giulia Clericetti, and Melanie Penagos. 4/2019. Digital Identity in the Migration & Refugee Context: Italy Case Study. Data & Society. Data & Society. See full text.Abstract

datasociety_digitalidentity.pdf

New Report by Carr Center Technology and Human Rights Fellow Mark Latonero.

"Increasingly, governments, corporations, international organizations, and nongov-ernmental organizations (NGOs) are seeking to use digital technologies to track the identities of migrants and refugees. This surging interest in digital identity technologies would seem to meet a pressing need: the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) states that in today’s modern world, lacking proof of identity can limit a person’s access to services and socio-economic participation, including employment opportunities, housing, a mobile phone, and a bank account. But this report argues that the tech-nologies and processes involved in digital identity will not provide easy solutions in the migration and refugee context. Technologies that rely on identity data introduce a new sociotechnical layer that may exacerbate existing biases, discrimination, or power imbalances.How can we weigh the added value of digital identification systems against the potential risks and harms to migrant safety and fundamental human rights? This report provides international organizations, policymakers, civil society, technologists, and funders with a deeper background on what we currently know about digital identity and how migrant identity data is situated in the Italian context. "



John Shattuck and Mathias Risse. 1/21/2021. “Disability Rights.” Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the United States, 008. See full text.Abstract

Nearly 61 million Americans have a disability, making the group the country’s largest minority. Individuals with disabilities cut across race, gender, and sexual orientation. Since people with disabilities are disproportionately older, they have also made up an expanding share of the general population as the U.S. population has aged. Unlike other more fixed identities, any person can become disabled at any time, due to severe injury, illness, trauma, pregnancy, or simply aging. In fact, while only 11% of people under ages 18 to 64 reported having a disability in 2017, 35% of people ages 65 and over reported having one, illustrating the fluid nature of disability status.

Disabilities include a range of conditions, both visible and invisible, and including physical, mental, and cognitive impairments—all of which require different types of protection against different types of discrimination. These complexities make understanding and advancing disability rights more challenging. Moreover, people with disabilities continue to face challenges as a result of policies that affect them both directly and indirectly. Renewing rights for people with disabilities requires both reinstating and extending equal protections, and affirmatively expanding accommodations to better allow them to participate meaningfully in all aspects of society. 

Read the full paper. 

See other issues of the Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities project here. 

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