2025 Human Rights Conference
Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights: Future of Humanity in the 21st Century
May 22-23, 2025
The 2025 conference is scheduled for May 23, 2025, and the theme is Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights: Future of Humanity in the 21st Century. The conference will begin with an evening keynote reception in central Florence on May 22, followed by a full-day program that will include multiple panels, a keynote luncheon, and a closing dinner. Keynote speakers will be announced as they are confirmed. Gonzaga Law in Florence will waive speaker conference fees, including for program events and meals. Depending on available resources, Gonzaga also may be able to provide lodging in Florence for the dates of the conference and limited travel reimbursement.
This conference will explore the many ways in which AI is negatively impacting and positively influencing the fulfillment of the entire spectrum of human rights and will highlight the ways in which different regulatory bodies are and should be seeking to impose safeguards or limits on the development and implementation of AI, and how technology companies are already being held accountable for the irresponsible deployment of AI.
AI has the potential to transform life as we know it, and yet is being advanced at almost incomprehensible speeds and used by corporations and governments who brazenly disregard its potential impact, flout attempts at sufficient regulation, and show no signs of meaningfully guarding or guiding its impact. Harms are not just theoretical. AI has already been used in facilitating mass surveillance as well as perpetuating bias in the criminal justice system, healthcare, education, job markets, access to housing, and access to banking, thereby exacerbating discrimination against already marginalized groups and doing so in ways that can be all but imperceptible to the average person. Like all tools, AI also has the potential to benefit human rights, from facilitating advances in healthcare to tracking supply chain compliance. But because human rights are indivisible and interdependent, AI can reasonably be framed as poised to affect nearly every recognized human right, including the rights to freedom of expression, thought, assembly, association, and movement; the right to privacy and data protection; the rights to health, education, work, and an adequate standard of living; and non-discrimination and equality. And that’s just the list at the time of writing.
The UN, through its B-Tech initiative, has created a framework by which technology companies can fold considerations of human rights into the work that they do. Mandated by a Global Call Against Racism issued by UNESCO’s Executive Board in 2020, UNESCO developed a Roadmap against Racism and Discrimination. In parallel, UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, a pillar of the roadmap, was adopted in 2021 by 193 countries. These are just a few examples of legal development toward AI regulations.
Call for Papers
We anticipate a plenary panel to open the conference focusing specifically on the impact of AI on human rights. We also welcome paper proposals that explore other legal and interdisciplinary topics relating to AI and human rights. We will organize selected papers into several concurrent panels.Paper proposals are invited on any topic that explores AI and human rights issues.
The conference is co-sponsored by Gonzaga-In-Florence, the Center for Civil and Human Rights at Gonzaga University School of Law, and the Asian Society of International Law Special Human Rights Interest Group (Singapore).
