Internet of Humans

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* Article: The Internet of Humans (IoH): Human Rights and Co-Governance to Achieve Tech Justice in the City. By Christian Iaione, Elena De Nictolis and Anna Berti Suman. Law & Ethics of Human Rights 2019; 13(2): 263–299

URL = https://doi.org/10.1515/lehr-2019-2008

Abstract

"This Article proposes complementing the technological and digital infrastructure with a legal and governance infrastructure, the Internet of Humans, by construing and injecting in the policy framework of the city the principle of Tech Justice. Building on a literature review and from an analysis of selected case studies, this Article stresses the dichotomy existing between the market-based and the society-based applications of technology, the first likely to increase the digital divide and the challenges to human rights in the city, the latter bearing the promise to promote equal access to technology in the city. The main argument advanced by this Article is that the principle of Tech Justice if embedded as an empirical dimension of smart city and sharing city policies can steer their developments in the direction of a more just and democratic city."


Contents

"The Article is divided into four parts.

Part I introduces and operationalizes the concept of Tech Justice and its foundations. The operationalization of the dimension of Tech Justice shows the extent to which it is a matter of an incremental dimension, ranging across four sub-dimensions: access and distribution, participation, co-management, and co-ownership.


Part II provides an empirical overview of relevant case studies exemplifying the different subdimensions of the Tech Justice principle. The case studies are grouped into three main policy areas: wireless technology, regulation of the use and ownership of data, urban energy. For each area, we offer a brief description and an example or some case studies that illustrate different dimensions of the Tech Justice principle.


Part III raises the issue that the dominant discourses surrounding the notions of the IoT and IoX do not take into account issues of fairness, democracy, social and economic justice. The Article then reviews the literature on the tech-based visions of city: the smart city and the sharing city, underlining the social justice gap in these discussions. In this part of the Article, we suggest that the recognition of the Tech Justice principle and therefore the implementation of the Internet of Humans legal and governance infrastructure implies essentially the injection of a human rights legal framework and a commons-based governance approach in the smart city and sharing city discourses.

The Article finally positions the concept of Tech Justice within the legal scholarship that investigated whether cities should have a role in safeguarding human rights. The main challenges arising in urban contexts in terms of human rights, the legal, philosophical, sociological and political science approaches that build the concept of a Right to the City approach are investigated in connection with the tech development. Subsequently, Part IV advances the hypothesis that commons-based governance — building on the studies carried out on digital and infrastructure commons — could enhance the feasibility of the implementation of the Tech Justice principle as the cornerstone of a human rights based approach in the governing of urban tech infrastructure and services, tackling the barriers to equal access to or ownership of technology in the city."

Excerpts

Tech Justice

Christian Iaione et al.:

"Tech Justice within the commons theory can represent one of the most important empirical dimensions of the normative model of the urban governance approach based on the reconceptualization of the city as a commons.6 What we suggest is that looking back at Lefebvre and Ostrom could be useful to identify the guiding and design principles to improve the governance of techbased innovations in the city. Furthermore, the promotion of self-organization, self-government, and citizen participation should complement the discussion on the relationship between social justice and tech in the city.

Further research is definitely needed in order to delve deeper — especially regarding these two items:

a) the question on how to mediate the existing dichotomy between market-based and society-based tech developments;

b) the empirical dimension of Tech Justice to drive the variation of smart city and sharing city policy and legal models toward a more just and democratic city.


Fertile ground for future research also includes the need to reflect on the scale and scalability of such innovations; an understanding of the more appropriate features, shape and scale of institutions responsible for recognizing or granting a “right to tech” in the city; an analysis of potential state and urban government reconfiguration and changing roles; research on the role of the law and regulations in facilitating such “right to tech” in the city; assessment of the risk that the current discourse around tech in the city might end up supporting the creation of a “surveillance society.” This Article could not cover all these issues; rather, its contribution is to identify them and to lay the ground to further investigate the opportunities and challenges of embedding Tech Justice in the smart city and sharing city discourse."


Cases


More information

  • Ugo Mattei & Alessandra Quarta, Right to the City or Urban Commoning? Thoughts on the

Generative Transformation of Property Law, 1 ITALIAN L. J. 303, 305-06 (2015).