Call for Papers

Special Issue on “AI, Business, and Human Rights”

The Business and Human Rights Journal (BHRJ) is pleased to announce a call for papers (CFP) for a special issue about the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI), business, and human rights. Unlike other dual-use technologies, AI is being promoted primarily by the private sector, giving businesses significant influence over the consequences of its implementation across different sectors. As AI technologies developed by private industry with little regulatory oversight become increasingly pervasive, it is crucial to advance our understanding of their possible negative or positive impacts on human rights and the role of concepts derived from the field of business and human rights, and how a human rights-based approach might address these consequences.

AI has the potential to facilitate greater access to certain human rights, including education and healthcare. However, it may also pose risks to other rights, and AI’s impacts will not be evenly or equitably distributed with burdens falling most heavily on marginalized, vulnerable, or disadvantaged populations. For example, data workers in Kenya tasked with labeling graphic content for corporate generative AI training are facing serious mental health challenges. Women are disproportionately the targets of abusive AI-generated deepfakes, and generative AI is creating concerns about how companies will address disinformation in the biggest global year of elections. People of color are more likely to be misidentified by facial recognition systems, leading to increased surveillance and even wrongful arrests. The weaponization of AI for warfare is raising new concerns about the life-and-death consequences of algorithmic technology. And the resource demands of AI will primarily affect the low-resource communities and Global South countries already subject to the greatest impacts of climate change. Furthermore, as the main drivers of AI development, businesses have significant influence over its human rights impacts without clear corresponding binding obligations, despite the presence of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The influence of AI on human rights is being acknowledged in literature and even legislation; the EU AI Act is grounded in the need to protect fundamental rights.  

Since AI is being developed mostly in the private sector, a human rights approach to AI offers a new way to understand AI’s impacts and how the state can and should address its role in society. This special issue will expand beyond descriptive analyses of AI’s human rights impacts to address meta-questions about the human rights approach to AI in the context of its corporate development. In doing so, we aim to build a diverse and inclusive community that will advance the field of AI and human rights as a key area of scholarly inquiry and encourage further consideration of human rights as more technologies emerge from the private sector.

Scope and Objectives

This special issue will focus on the multifaceted intersection of AI, business, and human rights, as well as on the field of AI and human rights as a whole. Contributions can focus on specific issues regarding AI, business, and human rights or address a meta-question about the field. Possible research threads to explore include, but are not limited to:

• What is distinctive about a human rights approach to the business of AI and business enterprises integrating AI into processes and procedures? How does a business and human rights approach to the risks presented by AI development and use complement, contrast, or contest other paradigms in AI ethics, such as the human-centric approach?
• What responsibilities do businesses have when considering the intersectional human rights impacts of AI?
• How might different interpretations of salient human rights risks and due diligence (including reporting requirements like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) in different industry sectors and different approaches to regulating human rights impact AI governance in different jurisdictions?
• How might victims of AI-enabled human rights violations in different countries and different jurisdictions be given access to remedy?
• What does AI-driven automation imply for businesses and for organized labor? For the future of work more broadly?
• What governance frameworks are suitable to address ethical dimensions of generative AI in the creative industry?
• Should the technology sector—as a leading portion of the business community developing and deploying AI—have an enhanced responsibility to ensure new technologies are not misused? What role should the broader business community increasingly embracing AI technologies play in upholding human rights in the face of AI development?
• How can a human rights-based approach to AI inform development and policy specifically in the Global South?
• What human rights issues have been overlooked due to the field’s focus on the Global North? What risks to human rights in the Global South are businesses from the Global North creating?
• What can business actors and policymakers draw from a human rights-based approach to AI? To what extent do existing laws and business approaches advance a human rights-based approach?

We encourage proposals for articles from scholars, business practitioners, policymakers, and activists from diverse geographical, cultural, and disciplinary backgrounds. Our aim is to ensure that the special issue represents a diversity of voices and experiences. As such, we particularly welcome proposals from early-career scholars, those not directly involved in academia whose voices are overlooked in academic debate, and researchers from countries under-represented in the global discussion about AI and its impacts. This special issue will be accompanied by workshops, a blog series on the BHRJ Blog, and other initiatives to build a community interested in developing the field of AI, business, and human rights.

Submission Guidelines 

We are seeking Scholarly Articles and Developments in the Field. We particularly encourage human rights advocates, policymakers, civil society actors, and business representatives to consider submitting a proposal for a Developments in the Field piece. Accepted abstracts, once submitted, will be subject to anonymous peer review and there is no guarantee of publication. Abstracts should be 500 words maximum. They should be sent to bhrjspecialissue@gmail.com by 23:59 (Anywhere on Earth time) on 10 February 2025.

Key Dates

• CFP opens - November 2024
• Virtual interest/information meeting - 19 December 2024, 11am Eastern time. To be sent a meeting invite or the meeting recording if you cannot make this time please fill out this form.
• Abstracts due - 10 February 2025
• Author notification - 28 February 2025
• Draft 1 due - 11 July 2025
• Draft 1 feedback - 25 August 2025
• Draft 2 due - 3 November 2025
• Tentative publication: 2026
• Workshops - 2025, international
  • We will have idea-generation workshops and feedback workshops. Blog series - beginning in December 2024

Guest Editors

Please feel free to reach out to any of us with questions or article inquiries.

Erika George - e8george@bu.edu

Emmie Hine - emma.hine@studio.unibo.it

Sylvester Johnson - sylvester.johnson@northwestern.edu

Maria Pilar Llorens - mllorens@udesa.edu.ar 

Michael Santoro - masantoro@scu.edu