The Rights Track

In Episode 1 of Series 7 of The Rights Track, Todd is in conversation with Ben Lucas, Managing Director of the University of Nottingham's Data-Driven Discovery Initiative (3DI). 

Together they discuss the threat to human rights posed by aspects of a digital world and the opportunities it can create for positive change. 

Todd Landman  0:00 

Welcome to The Rights Track podcast which gets the hard facts about the human rights challenges facing us today. In series seven, we're discussing human rights in a digital world. I'm Todd Landman, in our first episode of the series, I'm delighted to be joined by Ben Lucas. Ben is Managing Director of 3DI at the University of Nottingham. A hub for world class data science research, and a funder for this series of The Rights Track. To kick off the series, we're talking about some of the challenges and opportunities created in a data driven society, and particularly what all that means for our human rights. So welcome on this episode of The Rights Track.

Ben Lucas  0:37

Thank you so much for having me. 

Todd Landman  0:38 

It's great to have you here, Ben. And I guess I want to start with just to kind of broad open question. We've been living with the internet for a number of years now. When I first came to United Kingdom, we barely had the internet and suddenly the web exploded, and it is a wonderful thing. It's transformed our lives in so many different ways. But it's also created major challenges for human rights, law and practice around the world. So my first question really is, what are the key concerns?

Ben Lucas  1:04

I think that the internet is perhaps not bad in and of itself, and in that regard, it's very similar to any other new and emerging technology. We look at something like the automobile there's obviously dangers that having cars on roads introduced into society, but there's also a lot of good as far as a boost in quality of life and economic productivity and so forth. I think the central challenge and one that's perhaps getting exponentially more challenging is the fact that often more now than ever, digital technologies are moving a lot faster than what the regulatory environment can keep up with. And also very importantly, humankind's ability to fully understand the potential consequences of misuse or what happens when things go wrong.

Todd Landman  1:50 

So in some ways, it is interesting, you could look at Moore's Law for example, technology increases exponentially and this point you're making about the inability for the regulatory environment to keep up with that. I think that's a crucial insight you've given us because human rights in a way is a regulatory environment. We have international standards; we have domestic standards.

Ben Lucas  2:08 

Correct.

Todd Landman  2:09 

We have de jure protection of rights, de facto enjoyment of rights, but oftentimes, there's a great tension or gap between those two things. And when new issues emerge, we either need a new standard, or we need a new interpretation of those standards to be able to apply to that new thing. So, we're going to call the Internet a new thing for now and it actually, this dual use of technology is also interesting to me. When barbed wire was invented it's a great thing because you can suddenly close off bits of land and keep animals in one place. And it's wonderful for agriculture, but it's also a way to control property. And as we know, the enclosure laws in this country led to quite a lot of political conflict. But if we get back to the questions then about, you know, positive and negative aspects of the Internet, what else can you share with us?

Ben Lucas  2:50

There are examples such as work that colleagues in the Rights Lab are doing, for example, on the use of the Internet and in particular social media, for exploitation. So, child exploitation, for example. There's also terrible examples of migrant exploitation. People who join groups thinking it's going to be a community to help them to get a job in another place. And that turns out to be quite dodgy, so that there's examples that are just blatantly you know, bad and terrible and terrible things that happen on the internet. But then there are other examples that are, I think, much more complicated, especially around the transmission of information and new emergent keywords we're seeing around misinformation and disinformation. The power that user generated content can have to help mobilise activists and protests for good for example, to get information out when journalists can't get in. Then the flip side of that is the potential exploitation by nefarious actors who are obviously spreading information that potentially damages democracies and otherwise stable and important institutions around the world. The other thing I would sort of cite here would be work by our colleague, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick with his book, The Good Drone. That's a really interesting contrast here. So, a book about the use of UAVs and where on the one hand, if we think about a UAV that's armed.

Todd Landman  4:12 

That's an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for our listeners.

Ben Lucas  4:14

Yeah, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. And if we think about one of those drones that's armed and also potentially autonomous moving forward to some that's potentially you know, very, very scary. On the other hand, this same basic sort of technology platform could provide cheap and accessible technology to help mobilise social movements to help journalists for example. And so I think any debate around the good and bad of technology, that there's some really interesting and very complicated contrast involved.

Todd Landman  4:43  

And you know, you see drones being used for beautiful visual displays over you know, presidential inaugurations, for example.

Ben Lucas  4:48

Exactly.

Todd Landman  4:49 

You see this big, colourful display, but that same swarm technology of UAVs can actually be used for combat for warfare, etc. And we know from the work on human rights, modern slavery and human trafficking that, you know, taking pictures of the Earth using satellites with swarms of satellites is very good, but then that can also be used for for ill as well and I think that challenge of the dual use of technology will always be with us. I wonder now if we could just turn to another set of questions, which is, is the difference between life online and life offline. Do we think that human rights rules are different for online and offline life or roughly the same?

Ben Lucas  5:25 

A lot of people argue that online is a mirror of offline, although there are those potentially really negative amplification effects involved in the bad stuff that happens in the real world so to speak, when you move it online because you can take something that's very small and suddenly make it very big. I think there's a degree of it really just being a mirror and potentially an amplifier for the offline. Again, I think the central problem when we talk about human rights and the general protection of users of the Internet, is again really this fact that the technology is just moving so fast. That regulation both it's you know, how it's developed, initiated, interpreted going forward, the tech just moves so much faster. And then I think what we're seeing now is really kind of a shock that internet users get after the fact but it's maybe the sort of Newton's third law effect. You know, tech moved so fast was so aggressive and so free in the way it kind of there was sort of a wild west of how we, you know, captured and used data. And now we're just sort of experiencing the backlash that you would expect. One other sort of complicated dimension here is that we really need regulation to protect users of the internet but of course, that's then balanced against examples we see around the world of the way the internet's regulated being used to oppress and suppress populations. There's a really important balance that we need to achieve there. We need to protect everybody online. We need to preserve freedom of access to information, freedom of speech. We don't want people to get hurt online, but we also don't want to do that in an oppressive way. Maybe one thing that's really different as far as human rights online and offline, will emerge in the future around artificial intelligence. The big question I think that researchers in artificial intelligence are dealing with be they folks who are working on the algorithmics or be they the colleagues in law who are working on the ethics and the legal side of it. The really big question is around sort of transparency and tractability what's actually happening in this magic algorithmic box? Can we make sure that people can have appropriate checks and balances on what these you know this this new class of machines is doing?

Todd Landman  7:32 

Well, it's interesting because there is this observation about people who, who who use AI and design those algorithms that the AI solution and the algorithm that's been designed reflects many of the biases of the coder in the first place.

Ben Lucas  7:44

Exactly.

Todd Landman  7:425

And who are these coders? Well, they come from a particular social demographic and therefore you're replicating their positionality through AI, yet AI is presented as this neutral machine that simply calculates things and gives you the best deals on whatever platform you might be shopping.

Ben Lucas  7:58 

Precisely. And a lot of these you know, if we think about machine learning in general, where we're training an algorithm, essentially a type of machine to do something it involves a training set that involves a training data set. Where is that coming from? Who's putting it together? Exactly what biases are present in that? And now, and this is probably one of the most pronounced differences when we think about sort of human rights offline and online. I think a really big issue going forward is going to be that of AI discrimination, basically, and we're seeing that in everything from financial services - you know a machine is making a decision about does somebody get a loan, does somebody get a good credit score, applications and facial recognition technology. Who are they trying to find? What are they trying to do with that tech? And this AI discrimination issue is going to be one of the, one of the key things about that online/offline contrast.

Todd Landman  8:50 

Yeah, you know running right through all of our human rights law discourses, one about you know no discrimination, right that there should not be discrimination by type of person.

Ben Lucas  8:59 

Correct.

Todd Landman  9:00 

And yet, we know in practice, there's law discrimination already. And in a way AI can only amplify or maybe accelerate some of that discrimination. So it's a good cautionary tale about you know, the, the, shall we say, the naive embrace of AI as a as a solution to our problems. I wonder if I might just move forward a little bit about the cross-border nature of the internet, one of the promises of the internet is that nation state boundaries disappear, that people can share information across space and time we've just lived through a pandemic, but we're able to talk to each other in meetings all around the world without having to get in any kind of form of transport. But what sort of things should we thinking about in terms of the cross-border nature of the internet?

Ben Lucas  9:38 

I think that I would encourage all listeners today to go back to Alain de Botton's book, The News; a User's Manual, and also some of the talks he gave around that period, I think around 2014. We can have a totally new interpretation of some of those very relevant ideas, where we are now in the present and I'm talking about what some people are calling the threat of the post truth era. We've seen a completely unprecedented explosion in the information that we have access to the ability to suddenly take somebody's very small idea, good or bad, and project to a massive audience. But with that comes, you know, the vulnerabilities around misinformation and disinformation campaigns and the threat that that leads to, you know, potentially threatening democracies threatening, you know, various populations around the world. And another important branch of work that we're doing is studying campaigns and user generated content, and actually studying what's being said, at scale within these large audiences. We've done quite some work, Todd and I are with the Rights Lab for example, looking at analysing campaigns on Twitter. And this really comes down to trying to get into, exactly as you would study any other marketing campaign, looking at how do you cut through clutter? How do you achieve salience? But then also through to more practical functional matters of campaigns such as you know, driving guaranteed region awareness, policy influence donations, but we're just doing that at a much larger scale, which is facilitated, obviously, by the fact that we have access to social media data.

Todd Landman  11:16 

It's unmediated supply of information that connects the person who generates the content to the person who consumes it.

Ben Lucas  11:23 

Yeah.

Todd Landman  11:24 

Earlier you were talking about the media you're talking about academia and others, you know, there's always some sort of accountability peer review element to that before something goes into the public domain. Whereas here you're talking about a massive democratisation of technology, a massive democratisation of content generation, but actually a collapse in the mediated form of that so that anybody can say anything, and if it gains traction, and in many ways, if it's repeated enough, and enough enough people believe it's actually true. And of course, we've seen that during the pandemic, but we see it across many other elements of politics, society, economy, etc, and culture. And yet, you know, there we are in this emerging post truth era, not really sure what to do about that. We see the proliferation of media organisations, the collapse of some more traditional media organisations, like broadsheet newspapers and others have had to change the way they do things and catch up. But that peer review element, that kind of sense check on the content that's being developed is gone in a way.

Ben Lucas  12:18 

Yep and it's potentially very scary because there's no editor in chief for, you know, someone's social media posts. On top of that, they probably have or could potentially have a far greater reach than a traditional media outlet. And I think the other thing is, I mean, we were kind of for warned on many of these issues. The NATO Review published quite some interesting work on Disinformation and Propaganda in the context of hybrid warfare, I think around sort of starting in 2016, or ramping up in 2016, which is, you know, also very fascinating read. And then the flip side again of this connectivity that we have now, I guess the good side, you know, is when user generated content is used in a good way. And again, that's examples like, you know, examples we've seen around the world with the mobilisation of protests for good causes or fighting for democracy, grassroots activism, and in particular, that ability to get information out when journalists can't get in.

Todd Landman  13:15 

You know it's interesting we did a study years ago, colleagues and I, on the the mobilisation against the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia, and we were particularly interested in the role of social media and Facebook platform for doing that. And it turned out that a. there was a diaspora living outside the country interested in the developments within the country but within the country, those who were more socially active on these platforms more likely to turn up to an event precisely because they could work out how many other people were going to go so it solves that collective action problem of you know, my personal risk and cost associated protesting is suddenly reduced because I know 100 other people are going to go. And you know, we did a systematic study of the motivations and mobilisation of those folks, you know, try, trying to oust the Ben Ali regime, but it gets to the heart of what you're saying that this this you know, user generated content can have a tech for good or a social good element to it.

Ben Lucas  14:08 

Exactly. And I think another important note here, that's maybe some sort of upside is that, you know, there are a lot of academics in a lot of different fields working on understanding this massive proliferation of connectivity as well. In a kind of, I guess, strange silver lining to many of the new problems that this technology may or may not have caused is that it's also given rise to the emergence of new fields like so we're talking about Infodemiology, now we've got some amazing studies happening on the subjects of echo chambers and confirmation bias and these types of type of themes and I think it's really given rise to some really interesting science and research and I have some some confidence that we've got, even if we don't have those, again, editors in chief on social media, I have confidence because we certainly have some, you know, wonderful scientists coming at this scenario from a lot of different angles, which I think also helps to sort of moderate and bring some of the downsides to the public attention.

Todd Landman  15:04 

Yeah, and let me jump to research now, because I'm really interested in the type of research that people are doing in 3DI here at the university. Can you just tell us a little bit about some of the projects and how they're utilising this new infodemiology as you call it, or new grasp and harnessing of these technologies?

Ben Lucas  15:23 

Yeah, so 3DI as the data driven discovery initiative, we're basically interested in all things applied data science. We have, I think, quite a broad and really wonderful portfolio of activity that we represent here at the University of Nottingham, in our Faculty of Social Science. Faculty of Social Sciences. This is everything from economics, to law, to business, to geography, and everything in between. We take a very broad exploratory approach to the kinds of questions that we're interested in solving, I would say. But we do tend to focus a lot on what we call local competitive advantage. So we're very interested in the region that we operate - Nottinghamshire - sectors and industry clusters where they have questions that can be answered via data science.

Todd Landman  16:08 

What sort of questions? What sort of things are they interested in?

Ben Lucas  16:11 

This is everything from the development of new financial services to really driving world class, new practice in digital marketing, developing and sort of advancing professions like law, where there is a very big appetite to bring in new sort of tech and data driven solutions into that space but a need to achieve those new sort of fusions and synergies. So that, that side is obviously very, you know, commercially focused, but very importantly, a big part of our portfolio is SDG focus. So Sustainable Development Goal focused, and we've got, I think, some really fascinating examples in that space. My colleagues in our N-Lab, which is a new demographic laboratory, based in the business school, are working on food poverty, for example. And they're doing this in what I think is really exciting way. They've teamed up with a food sharing app. So, this is very much driven by the start-up world. It's very much a marketplace offering. The platform is set up to combat, hopefully both hunger, but also food waste. So, we're talking SDG 2, and we're talking SDG 12, sustainable production and consumption. And they've then been able to expand this work not just from understanding the platform - how it works, not just helping the platform, how it can work and function better. But they've been able to take that data from the private sector and apply it to questions in the public sector. So, they are doing a lot of wonderful work.

Todd Landman  17:37 

So, people have a bit of surplus food, and they go on to the app and they say I've got an extra six eggs, and someone else goes on the app and says I need six eggs and then there's some sort of exchange, almost like an eBay for food.

Ben Lucas  17:47 

Exactly.

Todd Landman  17:48 

But as you say, people who are hungry get access to food for much less than going to the shop and buying it and.

Ben Lucas  17:55 

Or free.

Todd Landman  17:56 

And people with the extra six eggs don't chuck them out at the end of the week. They've actually given them to somebody right?

Ben Lucas 18:01 

Exactly.

Todd Landman 18:02 

And then from that you generate really interesting data that can be geo-located and filled into Maps, because then you can work out where the areas of deprivation then where people have, say, a higher probability of seeking less expensive food.

Ben Lucas  18:15 

Precisely. Yeah. And I think that's also a good segue into you know, so one of the other flagship projects we have is 3DI, which is tracktheeconomy.ac.uk where we've been looking at, again, taking data from the private sector, but also government data and looking at how economic deprivation might have been exacerbated or not or how it changed. In particular focused on COVID and what sort of shocks that brought about, but with the intention of taking that forward. And the biggest sort of revelations that we've had working on that project have been really around the need for better geographical granularity. The fact that a lot of our national statistics or you know, marketing research assessments that are made by companies are based on you know, bigger geographical chunks. Actually, if we can get more granular and get into some of that heterogeneity that might exist at smaller geographical levels, you know, that's that's really, really important. That really, really changes a lot of policy formulation, sort of scenarios and questions that policy makers have.

 Todd Landman  19:19

One of the big problems when when you aggregate stuff, you lose that specificity and precisely the areas that are in most need. So I wonder in this research that your your colleagues been doing and that you've been doing, you know, what's the end game? What are we working towards here? And how is that going to help us in terms of it from a human rights perspective?

Ben Lucas  19:41 

I think speaking from a personal perspective, when I was a student when I was first taught economics, I was taught in a way that really highlighted that this is you know, economics was was just something that everyone as a citizen should know even if you don't want to become an economist or an econometrician, you need to know it as a citizen. The same now very much applies when we talk about technologies that might not be familiar to all folks like AI data science. I think there's a lot to be said, as far as what I would say is a big sort of mission for 3DI is to really boost the accessibility of technical skills to really benefit people in terms of prosperity, but also just in terms of understanding as citizens what's actually going on. You know, if machines are going to be making decisions for us in the future, that we have a right to understand how those decisions are made. Also, if we think about other challenges, in the sort of AI and automation space around, you know, potentially people losing jobs because it's become automated. I think we have a right to know how and why that is. I think another big sort of an extension of that point is really in learning and getting technical skills out there to people for you know, potentially benefiting prosperity and the labour market. We really need to keep that very tightly paired with critical thinking skills. You know, we're very good as academics, thinking about things and breaking them down and analysing them especially you know, we as social scientists, you know, coding is probably going to be language of the future to borrow your quote Todd, but who's going to use that coding and what for? So I think we need to keep people in a good mindset and be using this this this technology and this power for good. And then the last point would be as something that's been done very well on this podcast in the past, is getting people to think both researchers and again, definitely citizens to think about the inextricably intertwined nature of the Sustainable Development Goals. You know, so for us at 3DI we're looking for those problems at scale, where we have measurements at scale, where we can do data science and crack big challenges, but I think whether you're doing you know, much more focused work or work with the SDGs at scale, it's all really interconnected. An obvious example, what is climate change going to do for you know, potentially displacing populations and the flow on, the horrible flow on effects that's going to have? So I really, I think that's yes, sort of our our mission, I would say, moving forward.

Todd Landman  22:07 

That's fantastic. So you've covered a lot of ground, Ben, it's been fascinating discussion, you know, from the dual use of technology and this age old question of the good and the bad of any kind of new technological advance. You've covered all things around the, you know, the mobilizational potential problems with post truth era. The expanse and proliferation of multiple sources of information in a sense in the absence of of that mediated or peer reviewed element. And this amazing gap between the speed of technology and the slowness of our regulatory frameworks, all of which have running right through them major challenges for the human rights community. So we're really excited about this series because we're going to be talking to a lot of people around precisely the issues you set out for us and many more. In the coming months we've got Martin Sheinin who is a great human rights expert, former UN Special Rapporteur, but now a global, British Academy global professor at the Bonavero Institute at the University of Oxford working on precisely these challenges for human rights law, and this new digital world. And that's going to be followed by a podcast with Diane Coyle, who's the Bennett Professor of Economics, University of Cambridge. It's interesting because she wrote a book in 1997 called The Weightless World, which is about this emerging digital transformation coming to the economy, and has now written a new book called Cogs and Monsters. It's a great take on the modern study of economics and the role of digital transformation. But for now, I just want to thank you, Ben, for joining us. It's exciting to hear about the work of 3DI. We appreciate the support of 3DI for this series of The Rights Track. We look forward to the guests and I think by the end of the series we would like to have you back on for some reflections about what we've learned over this series of the Rights Track.

Ben Lucas  23:50 

Happy to. Thank-you for having me.

Christine Garrington  23:53 

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Rights Track, which was presented by Todd Landman and produced by Chris Garrington of Research Podcasts with funding from 3DI. You can find detailed show notes on the website at www.RightsTrack.org. And don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts to access future and earlier episodes.

In Episode 8 of Series 6 Todd is in conversation with Arlene Tickner and David Owen about the impact of Covid-19 on democracy and migration. Arlene is a Professor of International Relations in the School of Political Science, Government and International Relations at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, Colombia. David is a Professor of Social and Political Philosophy at Southampton University.

0.00-12.40

Todd starts by asking David about the relationship between democracy and human rights. David says that human rights and democracy are mutually entwined. They secure our basic standing, interest and membership in a democracy, whilst being a part of a democracy is meant to ensure those rights are available to us. 

Todd expands on David’s explanation and asks him about how Covid-19 has compromised the ideals of democracy and the protection of human rights. David points to three things that have questioned every day ideas of democracy:

• How within states different people (e.g. permanent/temporary residents/asylum seekers and refugees) are treated unequally
• The depth of global inequalities around health (e.g., Africa has just 3000 intensive care beds on the whole continent)
• Between and within states we are radically interdependent (poverty/lack of education in other parts of the world are threats to us all

Todd asks Arlene about how she sees things from her base and perspective in Colombia.  She outlines the political backdrop across Latin America where she says people are increasingly questioning democracy as the best form of government because of its failings. The pandemic has underscored different forms of inequality and is crucial in understanding growing forms of social protest in the region. She points to two specific issues that underscore the shortcomings of the democracies in this part of the world:

• Latin America is the worst affected region accounting for 35% of all deaths from Covid-19 despite representing only 8% of the global population (Colombia is top of the global list for deaths)
• Vaccination programme is extremely slow (e.g. only just beginning in Paraguay)

Todd comments that there is something of a myopia towards this part of the world and asks Arlene to talk specifically about recent protests in Colombia itself.

Arlene says the country has undergone a number of protests since peace accords were signed a few years ago which was to be expected. But she adds the more recent protests were related to tax reforms -proposed in the middle of the pandemic. This caused considerable discontent among the middle classes. Protests were also linked to ineffective implementation of the peace accords, discontent around access to education for young people, frustration over the pandemic and a deteriorated health infrastructure and pensions. Excessive police force used to deal with protestors has worsened the situation and invitations for dialogue have been empty offers. 

12.40-18.00

Todd mentions recent protests in the UK (Black Lives Matter, violence against women, anti lockdown, European Football Cup final violence and racism) and asks David for his take. He says there is a question of how to balance public health security with the right to protest (a fundamental human right). A more worrying issue for democracy in the UK he says is a lesson learned from Trump America around using culture as a way of focusing and intensifying social division (something he believes Boris Johnson and Priti Patel have engaged in in a bid to silence/counter the traditional left). 

He adds culture is becoming something of a key battleground for the kind of democracy people want (relatively thin as in Turkey/India/Russia with a strong executive) or a more egalitarian form of democracy with genuine opportunities to self-govern and participate. 

Todd picks up on David’s mention of ‘wokeism’ and points out that it is something that still isn’t well understood in the UK. He goes on to ask David about the lifting of restrictions in the UK despite rising cases of Covid. David refers to the England football team as a representation of the conflicted visions around what Britain/England should look like. One is a diverse and multicultural ‘bringing people together’ vision - the other is focused on division, generating division and ruling through division. Todd agrees.

18.00-24.43

The discussion moves to migrants and migration. Todd asks Arlene about the situation in Venezuela which has been highly unstable since the 1990s and where many people have decided to leave the country and flee to Colombia.

Arlene says there is both a political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela (exacerbated unintentionally she says by the US) which has led to some 2 million Venezuelans fleeing to Colombia. LA countries more widely have been unable to agree on a strategy to deal with this, but the Colombian President has afforded temporary protection status to all those migrants who arrived before January 2021. This has created a huge strain on Colombia’s fiscal capabilities. Arlene believes this to be part of the President’s ambitions to force the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro out of power.

Todd also asks about widespread social protests in Cuba and Arlene says these protests were a surprise to many, but that essentially were a response to growing discontent with the handling of the pandemic and certain human rights. She adds sanctions put in place by Donald Trump when he was US president have hit the Cuban economy hard. 

24.43-end

Todd asks David and Arlene to reflect on what the future of democracy holds. David says that in Europe the massive visibility of the inequalities discussed may be a spur for a re-engagement of social democracy and taking inequality seriously. He mentions Portugal as leading the way in temporarily giving some migrants the same rights to healthcare as its citizens. The ways in which some states have handled the pandemic will have implications for how politics in those states develops post/declining-pandemic.

Arlene says there are few success stories from the region, but has simply placed in sharp relief how those democracies are failing. Saying that she does think Uruguay and Chile provide some sources of hope. She says events around the pandemic have raised questions for her around ‘who is the human’ in human rights and so she feels both pessimistic and hopeful about the future of democracy. 

In Episode 7 of Series 6 Todd is in conversation with Tom Parker, a prominent counterterrorism practitioner who has consulted for the EU, the UN, Amnesty International and MI5 on post-conflict justice, security sector reform, and counter-terrorism. He is author of a new book, Avoiding the Terrorist Trap: Why Respect for Human Rights is the Key to Defeating Terrorism and in this episode he and Todd are reflecting on the complex interplay between counter-terrorism and human rights in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

NB By using the link above and the following codes, you can enjoy a substantial discount on Tom's book 

• 55% discount on the Hardback version using the code: P995PARKERHC
• 30% discount on the eBook version using the code: P995PARKEREB

0.00-03.43

Todd asks Tom about a view expressed in his book that there is no set profile of a terrorist. Tom says there have been many attempts to profile the type of individual who becomes a terrorist but that this does not work. Terrorists come from all backgrounds and walks of life, they are male/female and young/old. He mentions Mohamed Merah who shot and killed seven people in Toulouse and his brother who although from the same background and influences went on to marry a Jewish woman and get involved in inter-faith dialogue. Tom says there are a host of pressures from different sources that push people towards terrorism and that there are certain behaviours that can influence whether terrorism emerges in a particular society such as the marginalisation or abuse of people. 

03.43-15.20

Todd asks Tom why he believes a human rights framework is so key to tackling terrorism.  Tom explains that while researching his book he looked closely at materials in which terrorists over 150 years and across continents shared information about their ‘cause’ or activities. He outlines six core principles that emerge:

• Asymmetrical warfare
• Attrition
• Propaganda by deed
• Revolutionary prototype
• Provoking a reaction in the existing Government
• Undermine legitimacy of existing Government

In the latter two, Tom believes a human rights framework is particularly key as it stops Governments falling into a trap of over-reaction. He mentions the activities of Baader Meinhoff in the late 60s through to the 1980s.  

Todd asks Tom to say more about the idea that open societies are more vulnerable to terrorism and feel more pressure to create restrictive measures to prevent it. Tom says terrorism tends to happen in democracies rather than authoritarian societies. Terrorists are using violence often to open a political dialogue. Human rights law does not prevent states from taking action to protect themselves. Rather, Tom says, it is quite permissive with a range of options within a framework and he sees no reason to step outside that framework. He talks briefly about his own experiences in the 1990s as a security officer in the UK working within this framework. He sees no tension between effective counter-terrorism and human rights observance. 

Todd presses Tom on the claim from some quarters that the perceived existential threat of terrorism leads states to curb freedoms and violate human rights. Tom references Mao Tse Tung’s analogy of the War of the Flea and explains that it’s the reaction to a perceived threat that is the actual threat. He talks about Al Qaeda and how in his view it never posed a real existential threat to the United States compared with other threats including COVID-19. He goes on to say that despite this, many of the laws passed as a result of 9/11 are still in force today. He says he is in favour of the system used in the UK during the Troubles in Northern Ireland when all anti-terrorism legislation was temporary and designed to restore the status quo and therefore reviewed, renewed where necessary and updated or changed regularly. This has been lost since 9/11 in the US, UK and Europe he adds. He also adds that this has been done in the context of new technical and highly intrusive advancements that did not exist 20 years ago and may be hard to dismantle. 

15.20-23.30

The conversation moves to COVID-19 and whether it can be perceived as an existential threat and whether responses to it can be perceived as curbing human rights. Tom talks about ‘privilege’ and how the threat seems larger in the West compared with Nigeria where he is currently based and where there are other as if not more serious public health threats such as malaria. International human rights law anticipates the curbing of public freedoms to protect public health so he says there isn’t a threat per se to human rights from it as long as the curbs are lawful/ proportionate etc.  Todd presses Tom on public concerns around the measures used to tackle COVID-19 and how long they will continue to be left in place. Tom references the Iron Law of Bureaucracy, a concept in political science that an established democracy and its supportive state institutions have a tendency to enlarge and enhance themselves. He says we don’t think enough about the length of time we may have to live with measures after a threat has passed. He mentions the shoe bomber Richard Reid and how we still take our shoes off at airports because one person tried unsuccessfully to smuggle a bomb onto a plane in his shoe. He points out that when something fails, terrorists tend to move onto different things. He points to the length of time it took for the so-called Ring of Steel around London established as a response to the threat posed by the IRA took many years to gradually dwindle because these things are hard to change back once they are in place. Tom talks briefly about the development of new technologies such as number plate and facial recognition and smart cities and the potential implications of that with free public space shrinking and the potential for these technologies to be exploited for nefarious purposes.

23.30-end

Todd wonders if our attention will return to terrorism post COVID and if there are any learnings from the experience to help in tackling terrorism. Tom says public focus may have left terrorism but it hasn’t gone away especially right-wing and Islamist extremism. He agrees that the pandemic has had a ‘slightly depressing’ effect on terrorism and that the threats are likely to emerge as significant as they were pre-pandemic. Todd brings Tom back to the focus of his book to reflect once again on the central premise of the book that a human rights based approach to tackling terrorism is key. Tom agrees that counter-terrorism and public health are hard and that there will always be contention and disagreement. A human rights approach helps resist the goals that terrorist organisations are seeking to achieve. It is a more measured and careful way of tackling the problem.

A reminder that by using the link above and the following codes, you can enjoy a substantial discount on Tom's book: 

• 55% discount on the Hardback version using the code: P995PARKERHC
• 30% discount on the eBook version using the code: P995PARKEREB

• Martha Crenshaw (political scientist and prominent terrorism researcher)

In Episode 6 of Series 6, Todd is joined by Professor Aoife Nolan, to discuss the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the human rights of children. Aoife is Professor of International Human Rights Law and Co-Director of the Human Rights Law Centre in the School of Law at the University of Nottingham. She is also Vice-President of the Council of Europe European Committee of Social Rights and has worked with a range of civil rights organisations.

0.00-04.10

Todd begins by asking Aoife to outline the impact of the pandemic on the human rights of children. She points to the wide-ranging global impact of the pandemic and associated lockdowns, in terms of the health and survival of children and identifies a range of issues including, education, food access, mental health, increased levels of child abuse, the impact of poor housing, loss of social contact and increased risk of online harm. All of these directly affect children’s rights. 

Aoife explains that the pandemic has had a hugely unequal impact on children from different backgrounds and living in different situations. She adds that this has entrenched existing inequalities. Unaddressed, she concludes, this will have an impact on the future life-course of some children.

04.10-08.18

Todd moves on to focus on the actions of governments during the pandemic and the extent to which they were compatible with the rights of children.

Aoife points to the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which recognises that restrictions on human rights may be necessary in times of crisis but also the limitations on the exercising of those powers.

Todd wonders whether in the light of criticism from anti-lockdown groups, governments have responded to the crisis in an appropriate way. Aoife makes the following points:

• There have been a wide range of measures in different states
• In the UK there have been positive measures, but also shortcomings in terms of food and support for families
• Some governments have used the crisis to push long-standing agendas not consistent with child rights, for example in relaxing obligations to children in care

08.18-11.36 

Aoife gives an example of how the pandemic has been used to weaken various statutes related to the protection of children in social care. She explains how changes have been made in relation to the duty of Local Authorities towards education health and social care. She notes that these changes have been reversed as a result of pressure on the government. She says there are concerns that Covid-19 was being used as a cover for mass de-regulation of social care.

She mentions that the UK’s Department of Education was found to have acted unlawfully in scrapping a range of rights for children in care. A child rights impact assessment carried out by the department, which signed off the measure showed a lack of understanding of child rights. She points out that this move was later reversed.

11.36-13.45

Todd moves the discussion to the USA, which has not ratified the UN convention on human rights. He points to differences in approach between the Trump administration and the Biden administration and asks Aoife to comment on the progress towards getting children back into school.

Aoife points out that approaches to education are very much state driven, and although not an expert on matters relating to US education points out that:

• Schools cannot re-open without adequate planning, safety provision, and funding
• Even though the USA is not a party to the UN Convention, individual state constitutions include provisions for the protection of children’s rights

13.45-16.55

Aiofe reviews the situation in South Africa around school closures and re-opening, and says the net effect has been to amplify inequalities within the country:

1. The effect of closures was to move education online but large numbers of children did not have access to the internet
2. There were issues around re-opening in terms of infrastructure shortcomings and lack of support for school re-opening

As a result, re-opening took place against in non-Covid safe schools with implications for health, provision of school meals, and education.

They move on to discuss the terrible situation with Covid-19 cases and deaths in India and what Aoife thinks about the impact on children’s rights. She suggests that, beyond concerns related to Covid infections, the health crisis and associated lockdowns have interfered with the normal processes of vaccinations and health interventions, as well as in education.

16.55-18.12

Asked about the response of the Council of Europe, of which she is a member, Aoife reports that the Council has identified worrying trends in respect of:

• School closures
• Lack access to healthcare services
• Mental health issues
• Loss of social contact

18.12-20.23

Todd asks about the work of activists and advocacy groups in mitigating the impacts of the pandemic. Aoife says she has been impressed by the large amount of energetic work, and advocacy by both regional and international groups including:

• The strength of the ongoing discourse on children’s rights globally.
• The UN policy brief The Impact of COVID-19 on children. Is evidence of the traction of children’s rights.
• Children’s rights currently occupy a higher profile than other affected groups.

20.23 – 23.10

Todd’s asks about priorities for the post-Covid era.

1. In Aoife’s view there must be meaningful steps to get children’s rights to the centre of the recovery effort and policy planning
2. She warns of the potential austerity cuts that may follow in the post-Covid phase and predicts that they will be catastrophic for children’s rights
3. There is a need to acknowledge and deal with the structural inequalities in society, which are exacerbated by the pandemic, and which impinge directly on children’s rights

23.10-end

Todd asks Aoife to reflect on the importance of the voices of children themselves. She believes children have been excluded from the decision-making process. Their voices and views have been ignored by governments and that this is contrary to Human Rights Law. There is an urgent need for this situation to be redressed. 

However, the issue of children’s rights is part of a wider concern for Human Rights she concludes. There is a need for “inter-generational solidarity.” This requires children’s rights groups to work alongside disabled groups, older people, women’s groups and others to bring about change.

Protecting the most vulnerable children from the impact of coronavirus: An agenda for action. UNICEF,

Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Children United Nations 2020

 COVID-19 Statement United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, April 2020

Statement on COVID-19 and Social Rights European Committee of Social Rights, April 2021

A Child Rights Crisis  A. Nolan, LRB Blog, May 2020

Should Schools Reopen? The Human Rights Risk -An Advisory Note for the Independent SAGE – A. Nolan,  May 2020 

Of Limitations and Retrogression: Assessing COVID-19’s Impact on Children’s ESC Rights A. Nolan & J. Bueno de Mesquita, May 2020

Covid-19 Protocol R(Article 39) v Secretary of State for Education  [2020] EWCA Civ 1577 24 Sept 2020, 

Equal Education & Others v Minister of Basic Education & Others  2020 ZAGPPHC 306 (17 July 2020)

In Episode 5 of Series 6, Todd is talking to Mahi Ramakrishnan. Mahi is a refugee rights activist and runs a non-profit organisation, Beyond Borders Malaysia, which works to promote and protect the rights of refugees and stateless persons in Malaysia.

00.00 – 02.55

Todd begins by inviting Mahi to talk about refugee issues in South-East Asia. She explains that there are approximately 500,000 refugees in Malaysia and that:

• around half are from Myanmar
• the Rohingya make up the largest refugee group
• none of the refugee groups have any legal status in Malaysia, no rights to work, education or health care and are reliant on UNHCR for support
• Malaysia has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention

02.55 – 05.25

Todd asks Mahi to say more about the situation facing Rohingya. She says she visited Myanmar in 2017 and describes her shock at the lack of racial unity in the country. She explains that:

• prior to the 1960s the Rohingya were well integrated but the situation changed with the installation of the  military government in the 1960s
• there followed mass migrations of Rohingya from Myanmar to Malaysia in the 1970s

(Note: The Rohingya were declared stateless by the ruling Military Junta in 1982)

Mahi says that there are currently 3 to 4 generations of Rohingya, in Malaysia and points to 3 specific issues for them:

1. They have forgotten their culture
2. Lack of access to education means that they occupy the lowest social classification in Malaysia
3. Their community is characterised by a deep-seated patriarchy

05.25 – 09.50

Todd asks Mahi to expand on the issue of patriarchy and refers to her documentary film, Bou (Bride) which is about the trafficking of young girls into Malaysia to be child brides.

Mahi points out that while the buying of child brides is not exclusive to the Rohingya it is a central part of their patriarchal culture. She reports on the purchase of Rohingya child brides by men, via traffickers and suggests that parents are complicit partly because marriage offers a semblance of security to the girls given their lack of legal status (in Myanmar). The girls are in a precarious position, abandoned when they become pregnant and/or subjected to domestic violence and abuse.

Patriarchy is evidenced in the following ways:

• young Rohingya girls are preferred by the men over Malaysian girls because they will be more obedient
• girls are not allowed to attend school
• parents control children
• husbands control wives

However, she notes that women are beginning to organise and stand up for themselves and their rights, despite negative reactions from men.

09.50 – 17.15

Todd moves on to ask about the impact that Covid-19 has had on the refugee community in Malaysia. Mahi refers to the continuous influx of migrants and refugees, which has led to a xenophobic reaction within Malaysia. Initially directed at the Rohingya, but now it is more widespread, directed towards all refugees and migrant workers. She refers to existing socio-economic tensions along ethnic lines within the country and the focus of that discontent on the refugee community and points to the lack of a comprehensive health care plan to protect all groups against the virus, especially the refugee/migrant community. She says that lockdowns and movement controls have made life very difficult for refugees and undocumented workers to travel for work.

When asked about infection rates, Mahi reports that the majority of COVID infections are within the immigrant communities largely as a result of high density living conditions and the impossibility of social distancing at home and at work. She also notes high levels of infections in detention centres. 

Todd and Mahi agree that this feeds into a narrative that migrants are “bad” and need to be sent home.

However, Mahi argues that the problem lies with labour agents and corruption,which leads to the exploitation migrant workers, who lose their documentation and forcing them to live and work in high density unregulated environments.

17.15 – 20.57

Todd’s next question concerns the work of UNHCR, The World Health Organisation and the International Labour Organisations and whether Mahi sees any evidence of them working together for the benefit of refugees. She assumes that they have ongoing conversations but points to the need for them to work more closely with grass roots organisations and community leaders.

She goes on to outline the work of Beyond Borders Malaysia. 

1. The principal aim is to give refugees a voice using art and performance as a vehicle and she references Refugee Festival July 2021,  which is used as an advocacy tool.
2. It is involved in discussions with lawmakers re; basic rights to health care, education and work.
3. It undertakes projects like the Livelihood Initiative which involves women cooking food for sale and sharing in the profits.

20.57 – 26.45

Todd asks how the Festival has been impacted by the pandemic. Mahi notes a number of difficulties:

• the lack of freedom/requirement for permits to hold events at any time
• the backlash against migrants frightened off some from participating

Mahi explains that in 2020 the Festival went online, and while that presented opportunities to reach a wider audience and involve more people from elsewhere including the Kurdish-Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani, many refugees were afraid to take part. To mark this fact, Mahi had a fixed camera on an empty chair during a panel discussion. Mahi has passed the directorship of this year’s festival to a refugee artist and hopes restrictions will be lifted and enable it to take place in a physical space.

26.45 - end

Finally, Todd asks Mahi about signs of hope for the future.

In her view, the current Malaysian government is very difficult to work with. However, she says she will try to use existing legislation to allow refugees to work. She will continue to try to persuade the existing government even though the conversations are difficult.

Further links

• Human rights: reason to be joyful - Rights Track episode with Professor William Paul Simmons about marginalised groups
• Refugees: why hard times need hard facts – Rights Track episode with Gonzalo Vargas LLosa, UNHCR

In Episode 4 of Series 6, Todd is in conversation with Alison Brysk, Professor of Global Governance at the University of California. Alison’s recent work has focused on the global impact of Covid-19 on human rights. In this episode, she reflects on the disproportionate impacts of the virus and explains why she believes that human rights are an integral part of the pathway out of the pandemic.

00.00-03.58

Todd begins by asking Alison to reflect on the idea of Covid-19 as a threat to democracy and human rights.

Alison starts by talking about a citizenship gap, that is, people “out of place” physically, socially or in terms of status, for example:

• Refugees 
• Migrants
• Internally displaced people

She argues that Covid-19 has intensified that threat, particularly for vulnerable groups who have become subject to increased levels of mobility tracking and surveillance. She refers to examples from Brazil, India and the treatment of Native Americans in the USA.

03.58-07.16

Todd moves on to discuss concerns around the way governments may be using the Covid-19 pandemic as an excuse to restrict migration, human rights and curb civil liberties. Alison says the first step is to focus on the interdependence of human rights. She points out that vulnerable people are being made scapegoats during the pandemic deflecting attention away from the real issues. She points to a selective approach to some civil rights over others, referencing threats to property and economic activity as receiving the most push back in California, for example.

07.16-11.00

The discussion turns to the debate surrounding privacy rights - the ongoing debate in the UK around the requirement of vaccination passports, for travel, for example and how that might affect identity rights. Given that this will create individual digital footprints the question is how concerned should we be Todd asks?

In Alison’s view, that depends on the functioning of the health care system. In well-established systems for example, such as in Europe and the global North, it could be a problem but there are well established mechanisms for monitoring privacy.

In most of the world, the situation is different. Access to this kind of health care does not exist. Health disparities and, therefore, a lack of, for example a Covid vaccination passport could create problems for:

• Those seeking employment
• Economic migrants
• Refugees seeking asylum

Some countries stand out as Covid-19 champions, for example New Zealand and Taiwan where there have been increases in state power, but where there are mechanisms for control.

11.00-15.12

Todd asks about the notion of patriarchy and how it intersects with the pandemic. Alison identifies three areas:

1. Production 

-Two/thirds of front-line workers are women and they have been disproportionately exposed to Covid-19. 

- Female domestic workers comprise a large percentage of migrant labour and have been left vulnerable to the virus.

2. Public space. Governments have used concerns over social distancing and the spread of the virus to restrict peaceful assembly. 

3. Reproduction. Many governments have taken advantage of the pandemic to limit access to reproductive health, for example contraception and abortion. USA and Poland are cited.

15.12-20.12

Todd points to a marked increase in reports of domestic abuse against women, during the pandemic. Alison refers to work carried out by UN Women, and the data that they have collected, and WomensStats, a project she works on. She finds:

• An increase of around 30% in reports of domestic violence globally
• The more severe the lockdown the higher the level of abuse
• The impacts relate not only to being physically locked in with the abuser but also in being unable to access support

Examples are given from France and Spain where new ways have been developed for women to communicate and seek support where they are unable to make use of established support mechanisms.

20.12-end 

The interview closes with Alison reflecting on the impact of the pandemic on her home state, California.

• Case rates are stabilising, with most areas going down through the tiers
• 25% of adults have had access to at least one dose of the vaccine.
• Some issues relating to the vaccination programme have been addressed
• • Bottle-necks in the supply chain of the vaccine
  • Issues re prioritization in terms of who was vaccinated
  • Issues of distribution
• Evidence of pandemic fatigue especially on college campuses where compliance is low
• Elderly and middle-class communities have shown most compliance
• There has been resistance to vaccination in three areas
• • A small number of neo liberal conservatives
  • New age groups advocating alternative medicine
  • Members of the Hispanic population, which makes up 40% of the population and are in the most vulnerable occupations although influential individuals within the community have been working to encourage the vaccine uptake

Further reading

The Future of Human Rights Alison Brysk, Polity Press, 2018

Why feminism is good for your health Alison Brysk and Miguel Fuentes Carreno, New Security Beat, 2020

A Pandemic of Gender Violence in the COVID Era   Audio discussion, The Wilson Center

When “Shelter-in-Place” Isn’t Shelter That’s Safe: A Rapid Analysis of Domestic Violence Case Differences during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Stay-at-Home Orders. M. Mclay 2021

Essential and Expendable: Gendered Labor in the Coronavirus Crisis  Megan Neely, 2020 

The Color and Gender of COVID: Essential Workers Not Disposable People  Catherine Powell, 2020 

UNFPA. Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Family Planning and Ending Gender-Based Violence, Female Genital Mutilation and Child Marriage. Interim Technical Note: 2020

Addressing the Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women Migrant Workers UN Women, Guidance note UN Women 2020

COVID-19: Emerging Gender Data and Why It Matters, UN Women Data Hub, 2020

In Episode 3 of Series 6, Todd is joined by David Fathi, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project to discuss the impact of Covid19 on prisons and prisoners in the USA.

00.00 – 04.40

David provides an overview of the prison system in the USA. The country has:

• the largest prison population in the world at over 2 million people
• the highest per capita rate of prisoners at between 5 and 10 times the rate for countries like Canada, England, and Wales and even authoritarian countries like China

Incarceration in the United States is highly decentralized across 51 different prison systems. Every state has its own prison system separate from and running alongside the federal prison system, and within that the private, for profit prisons account for around 10 percent of the national prison population. 

There are concerns relating to private run prisons, which have led to the Biden administration removing private companies from operating federal prisons. Concerns raised include:

• lack of oversight
• poor quality rehabilitation services and programming
• low levels of safety and security

04.40 – 06.07

The conversation moves on to discuss rehabilitation. David notes that rehabilitation has a very low profile in the U.S. prison system. The extensive use of solitary confinement works contrary to rehabilitation.

06.07 – 09.33

David says the drivers of the prison population date back to the days of slavery, structural racism and the Jim Crow laws. He points to the post-Civil War period in the US when there was a deliberate policy of incarcerating black people. He adds that its legacy exists today in the fact that a black male is 6 times more likely to be incarcerated than a white man. 

The penal system and culture is described by David as punitive rather that restorative: 

• average sentences are longer than in comparable democracies. 
• early termination of sentences is less likely.
• many more prisoners serve life sentences (1 in 11 of all prisoners)
• few efforts to rehabilitate and release

09.33 – 12.00

The US is also amongst the worst countries in terms of its use of solitary confinement. There are significant numbers of prisoners on death row who are kept in permanent solitary confinement often for over 10 years. It is estimated that over 100,000 prisoners are held in solitary confinement on a daily basis, a number which has increased during the COVID pandemic.

12.02 – 18.30

Todd moves on to ask about the early release from prison of Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer as an example of prominent individuals gaining release citing medical vulnerability to Covid19. David agrees that affluent/prominent people are treated differently by the system, but also contends not enough prisoners have been released as a result of Covid19. This does not make sense, he says because prisons are hotspots of Covid19 infection due to:

• large numbers of inmates
• high population density
• poor ventilation
• poor sanitation
• an ageing and therefore more vulnerable group to Covid19 population 

Although data show one in five inmates have tested positive, and anecdotally ethnic minorities have been disproportionately impacted, there are no data on whether/how BAME prisoners have been adversely affected because that data are not recorded. David says it’s hard to see this data omission as anything other than intentional.

18.30 – 21.30

The situation is similar in other detention centres, immigration centres, jails etc, but the problems of control are enhanced by the rapid turnover of people through those facilities. Todd asks how successful ACLU has been in its efforts to get prisoners released because of Covid. David says they have had:

• significant success in getting people released from detention centres due to medical vulnerability to Covid19
• very little success at getting vulnerable inmates released from prisons
• some success in terms of mitigation of infection risk in prisons

30.00-end

Todd asks about the prospects for a reduction in the size of the prison population. David says the problem is the decentralised nature of the penal system, which works against the ability to bring about reform. This has a parallel in the drive to get all of the population vaccinated against the Covid19 virus, which is also being hindered by the same federated structure. This, he adds, begs the question of where prisoners fit in the priority system for vaccination.

Further Links from ACLU

• Prisoner rights
• Statement on ending of private companies running federal prisons
• Banking on Bondage: private prisons and mass incarceration
• Campaign to end solitary confinement
• Report on solitary confinement on death row
• Report on 500% increase in solitary confinement under Covid19

In Episode 2 of Series 6 Attorney Dominique Day, founder and Executive Director of the Daylight Collective which seeks to fill the space between the status quo and substantive justice with creativity, diverse voices, and multi-sector approaches and understandings talks to Todd about how COVID is negatively and unequally impacting the lives and human rights of Black Americans of African descent.

00.00 – 02.20

Todd begins by asking Dominique to comment on the dis-proportionate impact of the Covid19 pandemic on people of African descent. She points to significant racial disparities in terms of:

• Who becomes infected
• Who has access to health care
• Differences in outcomes in terms of severe illness and death

This is seen as an outcome of policies, which exemplify systemic racism at a global and local level.

02.20 – 05.30

Todd asks Dominique which factors she sees as playing a key role in the impact of the Covid19 pandemic. 

• Whilst racism is not intentional she sees it as being ingrained into the presumptions and actions of individual decision makers
• In emergency departments this translates to medical bias when doctors are working under stress
• As evidence she points to research which suggests that medical bias disadvantages people of African descent (and which she discusses in a related webinar)
• Although the data is widely known her concern is that the issue of systemic racism is embedded in decision making even at the level of the individual clinician

05.30 – 12.40

Todd summarises and points out that the reality is that people of African descent in the USA have a markedly higher mortality rate, which is linked to a long history of systemic racism.

• Dominque points to “social conditioning” in deciding which lives matter. By way of example she points to the decision to withhold the distribution of the Pfizer vaccine on the African continent and argues that it suggests that this is a decision made along the lines of race
• In terms of the impact of the pandemic, there are parallels within the fields of education, the economy and health where individuals make decisions on the basis of a bias which reflects systemic racism within society
• She references an email circulated within NYU hospital in New York where the onus to make rapid life and death decisions was placed on doctors working in the emergency department, without supervision and review. Given the intense stress doctors were under, those decisions were more likely to be influenced by bias (unwitting or not) 
• Health care providers showed no willingness to discuss the research data,
• • predicting the disproportionate impact on black and brown communities
  • identifying systemic racial bias 
  • individual doctors were prevented from commenting publicly
• Warnings of racial bias were ignored and continue to be ignored

12.40 – 20.50

Todd moves on to examine differences of outcomes for black and white communities in relation to encounters with the police and references the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson a suburb of St Louis in the US in 2014.

• The Ferguson killing follows a common pattern of outcomes for the black community
• A parallel is suggested with respect to the security preparations made for the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 in Washington
• Comparisons have been made between this protest and the insurrection staged by pro- Trump militants. Todd argues that any move to suggest the two events were similar creates a false equivalence

Dominique points out that:

• In terms of policing there was a higher level of perceived threat and a heavier response during the Black Lives Matter protests than for the recent march on the Capitol in Washington
• Dominique argues that the former was a racialised response conditioned by acceptance of white supremacy and a long history (in the USA) rooted in slavery and exploitation.
• She references the origins of racial policing in the USA as being to protect property from the actions of slaves.
• She identifies a “legacy mindset”, a baseline of white supremacy, where white people expect to be treated differently (better) than black people, a mindset which is a major barrier to progressing racial justice and equality.

20.50 – 23.45

The conversation returns to the pandemic and vaccination programs in the USA. Dominique has a number of concerns.

• Distribution is a major issue
• More thought needs to be given in terms of prioritising who gets the vaccine first. The role of essential workers, drivers, home helpers who have been disproportionately infected needs to be acknowledged when prioritising vaccination programs.
• There is also a need to talk about racial equity in the delivery of vaccination programs

23.45 – 26.00

Todd asks why significant numbers of African Americans are resistant to taking the vaccine.

• In Dominique’s view there is a distrust in black communities which in part dates back to the infamous Tuskegee experiment, where black people were exploited in the name of medical science
• In order to increase the uptake of the vaccine in black communities their must first be an understanding that there is a legitimated scepticism based on historical fact

26.00 - end

Todd ends by asking Dominique what she is hoping to see from the new government administration in terms of the issues she has discussed in this episode. In terms of the response to the Covid19 pandemic, she would like to see a critical re-evaluation of responses to the pandemic, and in particular the role of systemic racism and its impact on African American communities.

Useful links

1. Racial Bias in the time of Covid19, the Time is Now  A webinar hosted by Dominique Day
2. Millions of black people affected by racial bias in healthcare alogorithms Heidi Ledford in Nature October 2019
3. NYU Langone tells doctors, “Think more critically” about who gets ventilators Shalini Ramachandran and Joe Palazollo in Wall Street Journal 31/03/ 2020
4. 40 years of Human Experimentation in America: The Tuskegee Study Ada McVean, McGill University, January 2019

Additional references

Assessing differential impacts of COVID-19 on black communities; Gregorio Millet et al, Annals of Epidemiology, July 2020

Implicit Bias in ED overcrowding, is there a connection? Loner and Rotolli i EM Resident October 2018

The effect of race and sex on recommendations for cardiac catheterization Schulman Berlin et al, New England Journal of Medicine February 1999

Implicit racial/ethnic bias among health care professionals and its influence on health-care outcomes: a systematic review  Chapman et al, Journal of Public Medicine December 201

In Episode 1 of Series 6, Todd is talking with Dr. Nina Ansary an award-winning Iranian-American author, historian, and women's rights advocate. Nina is the UN Women Global Champion for Innovation and Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics Centre for Women, Peace & Security, and author of Anonymous Is a Woman: A Global Chronicle of Gender Inequality. They discuss the impact of the COVID19 pandemic on women’s rights and on the citizens of Iran. 

 00.00 - 05.06  

Todd begins by asking Nina for her reflections on the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic on Iran. She comments that: 

• Covid 19 has served to exacerbate existing economic problems and far from supporting the population the regime has continued its crackdown on advocates for freedom and closer ties with the West 
• The health service is under severe strain not helped by the impact of sanctions resulting in shortages of medical equipment and medicines 
• Overall Iranians now feel more isolated than ever 

• While there are numerous organisations engaged in lobbying on human rights issues the international community could do more 
• The impact of Covid 19 has pushed human rights issues to the background 

05.06 – 06.55 

Todd moves on to ask Nina for her take on the existing nuclear power deal and US sanctions.  

She argues that while the sanctions are not the cause of Iran’s economic difficulties they have accelerated the impact of economic mismanagement and corruption, which has fallen on the people and not the regime or its leaders.  

 06.55 – 11.05  

The discussion moves onto the impact of Covid 19 on women’s rights. Prior to the pandemic, Nina says:  

• The advancement of women’s rights was moving at a ‘glacial’ pace. 
• Discrimination was present in a wide range of economic and political activity 
• Stereotyping of women was commonplace 

The effect of the pandemic has been to exacerbate inequalities, expose vulnerabilities, encourage discriminatory practices, and set back the advancement of women’s rights, in particular those who are most vulnerable and those who are marginalised. Nina notes that women have been losing employment at a disproportionate rate as a result of Covid 19. She concludes by referencing the Beijing World Conference on Women 1995 and the lack of progress made since then.  

11.05 – 15.05  

When asked about the impact of the pandemic on women in the USA Nina refers to existing reforms which have been too narrow and the need to “move beyond the reforms of the past” to create a more equitable future. Todd then asks whether Nina foresees a move to resurrect the Equal Rights Amendment in the USA (ERA).   

In reply she points out that women in the USA are not united around this topic and that even within the ERA movement there was/is a tendency to fragment into different groups which is a limiting factor and an obstacle to reform. 

15.05 – 19.40 

Todd moves on to discuss Nina’s work at the U.N. Appointed as a Global champion for innovation in 2019.  Her focus is to drive transformational change by, 

• Creating more opportunities for women and girls especially in technology and entrepreneurship 
• Raising awareness of barriers to progress 
• Highlighting women who have made significant contributions in those fields which have been overlooked downplayed or ignored. Nina refers to Dr. Jessica Wade who been challenging theses stereotyped b posting the names of women who have made significant contributions in the field of science. 
• Working towards equality in participation, representation and opportunity in those fields 
• Discrimination and stereotyping which serve to hold women back. Here she references the infamous post by Google engineer James Damores, whose internal memo suggested that women were biologically less capable of working in the fields of science and technology  

19.40 – 21.25  

Todd wonders whether it is time for a feminising of the curriculum in line with the decolonising the curriculum movement. Nina refers to gender mainstreaming as a major tool in moving away from entrenches stereotypes and unequal trajectories of development.   

21.25 – end  

Todd brings the discussion full circle by asking for Nina’s thoughts on the current situation in Iran and to comment on the motivations of the state in its crackdown on women activists. Nina describes a regime that feels threatened by powerful women and enacts discriminatory policies in law as a means of enacting coercive control over women. 

• She cites the example of the incarceration of a prominent lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh for representing women’s rights activists 
• In this way women are being denied access to legal defence by the state 

• Far from addressing what she sees to be the legitimate concerns of the Iranian people, instead, the regime is expending large sums on religious endowments and the funding of foreign terrorist organisations 

Additional references 

Impact of COVID on Iran 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/iran/ 

https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/iran-the-double-jeopardy-of-sanctions-and-covid-19/ 

In this second of two special episodes of The Rights Track, Todd reflects on what has been learned about modern slavery from our podcast and its contribution towards UN Sustainable Development Goal 8.7 to end global modern slavery by 2030. This episode features interviews from Series 3-5 of The Rights Track, which together form a library of 26 fascinating episodes and some 13 hours of insightful conversations with researchers from the University of Nottingham's Rights Lab, and a stellar line-up of people working on the ground to combat slavery from NGOs, campaigners and activists, authors, historians, economists, businesses and policymakers.

Blueprint for Freedom: ending modern slavery by 2030  Zoe Trodd, Rights Lab

Slavery-free cities: why community is key Alison Gardener, Rights Lab

Life after slavery: what does freedom really look like? Juliana Semione, Rights Lab

Forced marriage and women's rights: what connects SDGs 5 and 8.7? Helen McCabe Rights Lab and Karen Sherman, Author

Voices of slavery: listen and learn Minh Dang and Andrea Nicholson, Rights Lab

The useable past: what lessons do we learn from history in the fight to end slavery? David Blight and John Stauffer

Face to face: researching the perpetrators of modern slavery Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Rights Lab

How is the UN working to end modern slavery?  James Cockayne, Rights Lab and Lichtenstein Initiative for Finance against Slavery and Trafficking

Strengthening laws and ending modern slavery: what connects SDGs 16 and 8.7?  Katarina Schwarz, Rights Lab 

Fast fashion and football: a question of ethics Baroness Young of Hornsey, All Party Parliamentary Group on Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion, and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sport, Modern Slavery and Human Rights

Unchained supply: eradicating slavery from the supply chain Alex Trautrims, Rights Lab

The business of modern slavery: what connects SDG 8.7 with its overarching SDG8? John Gathergood, University of Nottingham and Genevieve LeBaron, University of Sheffield

Walking the supply chain to uphold human rights: what connects SDGs 12 and 8.7 Elaine Mitchel-Hill, Marshalls plc

Bonded labour: Listening to the voices of the poor and marginalised Anusha Chandrasekharan and  Pradeep Narayanan, Praxis

Fighting slavery on the ground: what does it look like? Dan Vexler, Freedom Fund

Creating stronger places for child rights: what connects SDGs 8.7 and 11? Ravi Prakash, Freedom Fund consultant 

Health and slavery: what connects SDG 3 and SDG 8.7? Luis Leão,  Federal University of Mato Grosso, Brazil

Global partnerships to end modern slavery: what connects SDGs 8.7 and 17? Jasmine O'Connor, Anti Slavery International 

The Congo, cobalt and cash: what connects SDGs 9 and 8.7? Siddharth Kara, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard University