Blockchain et al. for Human Rights Reporting and Monitoring in International Institutions
-Alexandra Overgaag, MAS, MSc, LLB1
Abstract
The human rights reporting and monitoring mechanisms of international institutions show that respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights is subject to practical constraints. This article argues that international human rights institutions can benefit from emerging technologies such as blockchain. Implementing such technologies into international institutions may strengthen states’ commitments to human rights while mitigating their politicisation as well.
Introduction
Breaches and violations of long-standing international human rights law are much apparent in today’s era that was labeled wrongfully as ‘the end of history’. Modern information technology tools broadcast 24/7 images of war and ‘collateral damage’, while stories on the trade-offs between human
lives and partial political victories are featured non-stop. Realists may argue that human rights are political per se, not in the last place because of their very birth in international politics in the United Nations (UN) Charter of 1945. Never again, was the thought.
The Charter indeed provided a starting point for human rights’ development. It initiated the institutional framework for human rights and substantial human rights law developed over time. Observing the constellation of disorder and supernovas across the skies of war-torn countries, the question is once more whether human rights are absolute ‘North Stars’, or if they are human artefacts by nature and therefore always depend on proxies and interests. If human rights are understood to be political, this implies that human rights are subject to negotiation and compromise. Indeed, Ignatieff held that human rights are balanced not only against cultural objections, but also against other aspects, such as purely political ones and moral ends2. It would imply that respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights — as countless times prescribed by international law — is subject to heavy ideological constraints.
One example illustrating this fundamental challenge in practice concerns human rights reporting and monitoring through the human rights treaty bodies. This article argues that international human rights reporting and monitoring mechanisms can benefit from emerging technologies such as blockchain. The article concludes that implementing such technologies into international institutions may strengthen states’ commitments to human rights while human rights politicisation may be mitigated simultaneously. Hopefully, such developments may ultimately strengthen the position of human rights institutions over time, resulting in the re-visibility of human rights as absolute points of references for our world.
HumanRights Monitoring and Reporting in a State of Distrust
After the UN Charter various human rights treaties were ratified. The international community established human rights treaty bodies to monitor3 states’ implementation of and compliance with the treaties and their corresponding human rights. Regular and periodic reports on the degree of
compliance or progress made are common ways of monitoring. Governments are required to submit country reports to the treaty bodies, which will then assess whether states have behaved according to their international obligations. Through effective monitoring mechanisms, governments and other players evaluate
their performances and enable citizens and the public opinion to hold them accountable4 for their
responsibilities and commitments. Today there are several issues involved with human rights reporting and monitoring. Crucially, these problems reflect an environment of distrust and an extent of politicisation of human rights.
First, considering governments’ self-representation, distrust on the part of the monitoring body is not uncommon5. Reporting on human rights implementation depends for a good part on the intentions of the reporting party itself since the report is drafted by the state it concerns6. It is easy to grasp that states may be reluctant to report on their own breaches and violations, or on the very shortcomings of their policies7. The dependency of treaty bodies on states is also highly problematic because treaty bodies do not have judiciary powers and thus lack sanction mechanisms when a flawed report is presented to them8. Moreover, state reports are often generic, backward-looking and apologetic, while data are generally of poor quality or are completely lacking9. States, whether sincere or not, frequently mistrust those responsible for monitoring. For instance, the monitoring body’s supposed subjectivity may be highlighted by a distressed state to divert attention from the judgment made and is actually aimed at attacking the alleged political bias of the monitoring ‘agressor’10. Moreover, distance between parties is created and maintained along various axes, including geography, language and culture11.
In terms of procedures, there are several problems as well. First, the procedures for submitting, discussing and evaluating reports are formal, slow and bureaucratic12. A priori, there may be disagreement among monitoring institutions and states on what information is required and for what purpose13. And, when such an agreement does exist, reports most often ignore the guidelines and do not necessarily provide what is required14. Leaving aside the benefits of constructive dialogue between treaty bodies and those being monitored, one might hold that human rights are subject to political motives and, alongside, to a range of monitoring and reporting challenges.
Data and Indicators as Human Rights Proxies
It is crucial to grasp that quantitative data play a key role in specifying information presented in the reports. Data provides feedback about present and future human right ‘trends’. Yet, the quality and extent of information given in state party reports is highly variable15. Indeed, not all states have the required data and detailed information available, even if they wish so. Particularly the most vulnerable states may lack access to the methodologies and resources required for the complex tasks involved with reporting16. Besides, data in reports may be incomplete or may lack objectivity. Crucially, one can always argue that data are insufficiently reflective of human rights’ flexible and normative character. For example, considering the right to clean water, it can certainly be argued that administrative and demographic data are highly relevant to these types of socio-economic rights. But such data are generally available and easier to interpret than data related to, for instance, human rights violations in prisons and whether or not such violations de iure amount to torture. In other words, there often remains a slippage17 between the human right
one intends to measure and the choice of its proxy indicator.
With their authority constantly challenged by governments, treaty bodies have demonstrated that they are attempting to use human rights indicators to hold states to account18. Human rights indicators require the identification, creation, collection, analysis and dissemination of quantitative data19. Undoubtedly, for strengthening and standardising the reporting system, universally applicable indicators would be a desirable
way to increase the quality of information and data as presented in every report20. Yet, translating this idea into practice is extremely difficult21. Indeed, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) did construct indicators for key human rights enshrined in international human rights treaties22. However this effort can not solve the problem of distrust between the treaty bodies and the states. And indicators alone will never be able to do the ‘true work’23 of assessing where states have fallen short of their obligations under human rights treaties. Finally, the challenges posed by a system of law that structurally fails to locate sanctioning authority means that monitoring will always be context-dependent.
The question is if there is a way out of the current status quo. Monitoring and reporting mechanisms based on emerging technologies such as blockchain could potentially strengthen states’ commitments to human rights while mitigating human rights politicisation as well.
Enters the Blockchain: Enhancing Trust, Transparency and Accountability
Blockchain technology — with features including decentralisation, transparency, immutability, and openness — could indirectly spur human rights through its implementation into international human rights institutions24. The following discussion presents a conceptual introduction (not a technical
outline) of how a blockchain can enhance human rights reporting and monitoring capacities. The proposition is that with blockchain one can 1) obtain reports faster and speedupthe reporting procedures, 2) gain transparency regarding which human rights issues need to be addressed most urgently, and 3) analyse human rights issues more comprehensively as the ledger is open to potentially any (whitelisted) submitter and is open for anyone globally to read.
First, blockchain can directly impact the human rights reporting and monitoring feedback-loop, de facto depoliticising human rights law. Fundamentally, blockchain technology offers the immutability of records, which could enable the development of a permissionless25 universal human rights reporting ledger. The author calls for the founding of a new blockchain infrastructure called ‘ReporChain’ and a corresponding decentralised application (dApp) on top of it for increased user experience. ReporChain’s founder is suggested to be the UN itself, which, through a General Assembly Resolution, shall call for the establishment of a Committee of Experts and Engineers tasked to develop the blockchain with ample room for improvement and feedback26. With ReporChain, human rights reporting ought to happen in real-time on a global basis. Reports from many different sources may be minted (and provisioned) on chain and shall be valuable for assessing a state’s efforts and fulfilments in terms of human rights.
Besides reports minted by official state delegations, reports from other (state) statistical bodies may be provisioned. Reports by NGOs may be submitted and even events-based reports may be of interest. Those reports may either be directly provisioned on the blockchain or through a ‘KYR27‘ type of procedure (there where individuals or private actors are whitelisted by the treaty body to provision reports). Where reporting occurs, the blockchain can keep track of all addresses’ contributions to a specific reporting cycle, being an immutable, record-keeping, decentralised ledger. The blockchain can identify authorship rights and automatically assign and match these rights to the addresses’ contribution in the chain. This process could occur through smart contracts so that there is no need for a centralised intermediary. Nodes will index and secure the network. The blockchain may also support the design of different access control regimes for different users. Smart contracts set conditions on if, how and by whom reports can be accessed or analysed. It may be preferable to restrict access to specific reports where for instance privacy considerations or national security concerns come into play. Crucially, ReporChain can serve as a monitoring mechanism and generate popular pressure for action. Indeed, the blockchain may encourage civil and NGO engagement and may facilitate partnerships between stakeholders involved in the reporting cycle.
In sum, by provisioning reports on ReporChain, insight into the human rights situation in countries is improved by increasing the quantity of data and the availability of data alongside enhancing accountability and public engagement. Enhancing trust and accountability is specifically important in today’s institutional human rights environment characterised by both distrust and the lack of an effective legal centre of authority28.
Follows the IoT: Providing Human Rights Proxies as a Next Best Alternative
One might argue that data and indicators presented in reports are proxies for human rights and therefore remain inadequate, even if those reports have been minted on a trustless blockchain.
Transparency and openness are not enough. Interestingly, in the near-to-medium term, smart devices and IoT (Internet of Things) may provide a way towards the further effective unfolding of human rights’ datafication and quantification. Indeed, the human rights monitoring mechanisms might embrace evidence-based practices29, founded on blockchain in combination with IoT.
Specifically, IoT could provide for more direct and complete proxies in terms of violations, breaches, or regarding human rights’ progressive realisation over time. In the near future, data collection supported by IoT devices30 (or networks of devices) that are whitelisted by treaty bodies may sense and collect data globally and can be provisioned on-chain31 so that through the blockchain institutional actors may obtain access to the corresponding databases or gateways. Newly obtained data may be cross-referenced against human rights indicators which indeed require the effective identification, creation, collection, analysis and dissemination of quantitative data. The potentials could be countless. For instance, IoT devices on public buildings may measure air quality, which may serve as a proxy for the right to health. Smart cameras detecting human beings may be deployed close to the entrance of a school so that the device ‘sees’ and ‘counts’ how many girls or boys enter a school building. This in turn, may be a proxy for girls’ enjoyment of the right to education. Apart from public devices, private sector devices or networks may be provisioned (in line with whitelisting and solid user configurations) for enabling access to data on their networks32.
Arguably, using IoT as data sensing tools in combination with an infrastructure such as the ReporChain blockchain33 can significantly improve the way in which human rights data is captured and understood34. Combining enough data can disclose new intel for both state parties and monitoring bodies. Moreover, as the data would be available to all whitelisted parties, it could facilitate comparison across countries. Indeed, if identical indicators were to be applied transnationally and would be measured against objective and transparent data, no state could argue that it would be subject to unreasonable, or unfairly targeted standards of accountability.
Importantly, for IoT in combination with blockchain to be meaningful in terms of human rights, it must exist within a stable and secure infrastructure. For example, violent external actors or hurricanes can still destroy devices or other property, regardless of whether or not it is recorded on the blockchain. Yet, the existence and
immutability of the ledger may act as a deterrent against such behaviour. Finally, privacy issues and concerns around surveillance remain apparent. In its worst-case scenario, IoT devices may operate as Bentham’s panopticon. However, IoT combined with blockchain technology and smart contracts can ensure privacy by design through solid identity management, open source code, whitelisting and smart configurations. At the same token, it is crucial that data provided by IoT devices is accurate. Hence, data flowing from devices ought to be encrypted and is to be made resistant to cyber attacks through the appropriate engineering solutions.
(Off-ChainandOn-Chain) Governance Considerations
Human rights monitoring and reporting can be understood as a form of governance. Human rights treaty bodies might want to reconsider their existing governance processes in terms of monitoring and reporting. They might consider adopting new technologies to cope with existing issues in terms
of (lacking) accountability, politicisation and mutual distrust. Emerging technologies such as blockchain and IoT may serve as catalysts that influence governance practices.
Improving the digital infrastructures of certain countries is a condition sine qua non35 for the most efficient development of blockchain-based monitoring and reporting solutions. Other considerations are also preliminary requirements for the technological solutions to be deployed effectively. Such necessities include facilitating enough processing power to verify the blockchain transactions (this would arguably imply at least a Proof-of-Stake network), enabling global skills to use and understand blockchain technology and addressing security concerns in a sufficient manner (both in terms of the blockchain’s governance per se, but also in terms of smart devices being connected and regarding the corresponding cyber risks involved). Importantly, there where different separate chains may be deployed as per different treaty body, interoperability between the different chains shall be crucial.
It can be concluded that inclusion — both in terms of development of and involvement with the technologies
— is key for the successful reporting and monitoring of human rights through new solutions. The reporting process should include many different stakeholders. Indeed, not only countries, NGOs (such as Amnesty International or Freedom House36) and international bodies would engage in human rights reporting, but potentially also human rights advocates37, individuals and the corporate sector38. Once the ReporChain concept proves viable, ideas about IoT-related data as proxies for human rights (in combination with blockchain infrastructure) may be institutionalised over time.
Conclusion
Technology itself in its current state cannot replace governance per se, nor is arguing so the objective of this paper. Technology is not neutral and data (alike humans) can probably never be truly apolitical. Yet without the availability of an open reporting and monitoring cycle based on some
form of reliable data, there is little chance of obtaining an overall picture that illustrates whether human rights are truly realised and respected. Arguably, human rights quantification on the basis of blockchain (and in combination with IoT) may partially solve the problem of (inter-)state and institutional distrust. Nevertheless, emerging technologies do not offer a silver-bullet to all the world’s human rights problems.
The data-input quality remains crucial. Some governments shall continue to find ways to manipulate their human rights reports and corresponding data. Human judgement, collective pressure and political action should therefore always enter the arena. Although human rights reporting and monitoring and human rights per se may thus remain political, a somewhat tamper-proof system of human rights datafication and quantification based on blockchain may brighten human rights law as our North Star. Aspirations for more accountability, more real accomplishments and more trust between those being governed and their representatives may ultimately be realised as well.
Annex: Conceptual Technicalities and an Abstract Preliminary Roadmap
Deploying blockchain technology for the reporting and monitoring of human rights entails recalibrating the role of the established international human rights institutions (i.e. the treaty bodies and the corresponding committees and all the institutional procedures as set out in the treaties).
The issuer of ReporChain shall be the United Nations itself, through a General Assembly Resolution calling for the establishment of a Committee of Experts and Engineers that are tasked to develop the blockchain with ample room for improvement and feedback.
As the project will be open source, the call for participation is open to anyone. Ideally, stakeholders should be state representatives, NGOs, and individual Web3 experts, equally distributed all across the globe.
Particular attention should be paid to including participants from ‘emerging’ countries.
The development itself may occur through developing a Minimal Viable Product, which may function for testing the concept, for instance by being deployed by one of the treaty bodies for a four-year period alongside the traditional way of reporting.
The blockchain itself may be a layer-2 solution, for instance being deployed on the existing layer-1 Ethereum blockchain. The same goes for implementing the blockchain in combination with IoT — a side chain may be added to ReporChain,or a new solution may be found in the form of an Optimistic rollup for efficiencies.
Generally, the General Assembly may consider developing its own utility token (UN token), so that reports (and in the future IoT devices and networks) may be provisioned on chain for a symbolic fee. This UN token may also be used for gas fees where transactions occur on the ledger.
At the blockchain’s inception, the UN may keep its token supply largely centralised and facilitate the running of nodes through special treaty body servers. With time, the node network(s) expand and tokens get distributed further; first to state-party stakeholders and subsequently to NGO’s and others involved. Future on-chain governance and tokenomics are subject to specification.
Being open, ideally anyone could run a node and, over time, rewards to incentivise (third or state) parties to provide computing power to run the network(s) may be provided in the form of UN tokens, subject to future specification. Provisions should implemented to prevent third parties of obtaining a majority stake.
Nodes’ malicious behaviour may be subject to slashing penalties.
Over time, the human rights reporting and monitoring process through ReporChain may become incrementally autonomous, ultimately functioning as a DAO (with properly developed on-chain and off- chain democratic governance frameworks in line with to-be-developed institutional and international rules and principles).
***
Appendix
1 by Alexandra Overgaag MAS, MSc, LLB (Business Development Strategist – Radom Network), July, 2022. This article is written in the author’s personal capacity and does not necessarily represent the view of her employer. The author declares no competing interests and received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
2 Ignatieff, M. (2001). Human rights as politics and as idolatry, p. 301. Source: the Tanner lectures on human values (Delivered at Princeton University, 2000).
3 There are three main types of monitoring mechanisms: I). reports, II). joint investigations and intergovernmental complaints, and III). individual complaints.
4 Rosga, A. J., & Satterthwaite, M. L. (2009). TheTrustinIndicators:MeasuringHumanRights. Berkeley Journal of International Law, 27, 2, p. 309
5 Ibid. p. 303.
6 Garonna, P., & Balta, E. (2003). Measuringhumanrights:Thechallengesfortheinformationsociety. Statistical Journal of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe – 19 (4) 2002, p. 282.
7 Ibid. p. 291.
8 Naturally, GeneralCommentsmight be written as regards their observations.
9 Infra6, p. 282.
10 Raworth, K. (2001). Measuring HumanRights. Ethics & International Affairs, 15, 1, p. 123.
11 Infra 4, p. 280.
12 Infra6 p. 282.
13 Ibid. p. 283.
14 Ibid.
15 Infra10.
16 Infra6,p. 283.
17 Margaret, S. (2012). MeasuringHuman Rights:Indicators,Expertise, andEvidence-Based Practice. Asil Annual Meeting Proceedings, 106, p. 255.
18 Infra4, p. 258.
19 Infra4, p. 255.
20 Infra10.
21 It is especially difficult as it requires I). quality data that appropriately reflect both human rights as international legal standards per se, and the differing set standards for measuring civil and political rights as opposed to the economic, social and cultural ones and II). a robust institutional framework for deploying these indicators to ultimately depoliticises the process and mitigates mutual distrust.
22 The framework adopts the same approach for all rights-whether civil and political, or social, economic, and cultural. Each substantive right is broken down into several elements, or characteristics based on the normative content of the right as set out in relevant treaties and General Comments produced by the relevant treaty bodies.
23 Infra4, p. 303.
24 The author stresses that blockchain can directly spur human rights in numerous ways, yet that is outside of the scope of this article.
25 One may argue that a private, consortium, hybrid DLT system or a permissioned blockchain is sufficient. However, the inherent lack of trust between actors and the politicised nature of human rights justify a trustless environment that is transparent, safe, open to all and that enhances accountability for the data and the reports provided and the very human rights implications that flow from there.
26 See the Annex for some conceptual technicalities and an abstract preliminary roadmap.
27 One might coin the term ‘KnowYour Reportee’.
28 Infra4, p. 301.
29 Infra17, p. 255.
30 According to De Villiers, C., Kuruppu, S. & Dissanayake, D. (2020). A (new) role for business – promoting the United Nations’ SustainableDevelopment Goals through the internet-of-things and blockchain technology, Journal of Business Research, p. 8, three elements are arguably needed for IoT’s potential to be realised: 1) hardware (sensor and communication technology), 2) ‘middleware’ consisting of storage and computer processing, and 3) knowledge/semantic tools such as visualisation and interpretation tools.
31 Radom Network is a blockchain infrastructure allowing for the global leasing of access to assets and services such as IoT devices.
32 Data ‘philanthropy’ has been understood as a solution to share data for public benefit, infra 30, p. 5
33 Potentially combined with intelligence tools for cross-referencing data-sets to human rights indicators.
34 In the future, the reporting and monitoring cycle could even evolve to becoming a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO). Fully developed human rights indicators can then be used as a mechanism to reward/punish (either monetary through funds, or non-monetary in terms of disclosure and repetitional risks) certain types of state behaviour by using blockchain smart contracts. This would fundamentally change the scope of the existing UN monitoring system, and alter the nature of international law based on mutual rules that regulate state behaviour.
35 Yet, the gap between countries might not be big when it comes to the availability of smart devices and the internet.
36 For instance, Amnesty International Reports has collected data and information on a wide set of human rights violations, Amnesty International prepares reports and provides data covering these issues annually approximately in 125 countries. Since its inception in the 1970s, Freedom House provides an annual evaluation of political rights and civil liberties throughout the world. The UNDP World Human Development Report also provides indicators and data on countries’ performance, see infra 6, pp. 289-290.
37 Rall, K., Satterthwaite, M. L., Pandey, A. V., Emerson, J., Boy, J., Nov, O., & Bertini, E. (2016). Data Visualization for Human Rights Advocacy.Journal of Human Rights Practice, 8, 2, p. 172, state that human rights advocates increasingly have been using data to deepen their understanding of rights violations and data visualisation to effectively communicate their findings.
38 Today, the individual complaint procedure may also stand open to individuals in the case of several of the treaty bodies. In the future, individuals or companies may deploy their IoT devices (or connected networks) onto the IoT blockchain and contribute to the data sets that serve as human rights proxies. The author mentions also that a specified category of submitters (individuals, companies or even NGOs) might provision their reports of devices on chain after having completed a procedure similar to KYC (Know Your Reportee in casu), executed by an Oracle or a trusted party that may or may not involve the treaty body itself.
