Podcast 🎧 & blog: Safeguarding civic spaces, with Doug Rutzen

Digital advancements present us with numerous opportunities to move forward on the path toward more inclusive and democratic societies. That has been the case when tech-enabled social movements and civil society organisations to sprout, regroup, and act. However, the opposite holds true too – technology is agnostic, and supported by authoritarian or malicious intents, it can be used to threaten, surveil, and cancel out opposition.

Doug Rutzen, President and CEO of the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) and professor at Georgetown University, saw how this dualism unfolded throughout the past three decades. In this podcast episode, we discuss where we were and where we’re at. A wide-ranging conversation on including the Global South, safeguarding civic spaces, and advocating for the rule of justice (not just that of law).

Civil society advanced with digitalisation, hand in hand

We take it from afar, starting from the mid 1990s. Because Doug Rutzen’s early work in Central and Eastern Europe during the transition years exemplifies how civil society can drive democratic transformation. “I came here in 1994, and it was a truly magical moment. During that era, we saw how civil society had played a role in democratic transformations in places like Chile, Poland, and Czechoslovakia,” Rutzen notes.

There was a strong desire to establish legal frameworks that supported civil society. While serving as legal advisor to the parliament of now-Czechia, the first law he helped draft was on associations and foundations. “They had seen how authoritarians had converted the rule of law into ‘the rule by law’, to restrict human rights. So, we needed to ensure that there was an enabling environment for civil society to continue to play a role in democratic consolidation.”

Digital technologies began to intersect with these efforts, aiding in communication and organisation during these years. Civil society development and the digital revolution were often seen as distinct trends, but both were about empowering people to influence their everyday lives. “Whether it’s within a formal civil society organisation or a movement or just online, we saw that both these trends started to come together around the empowerment of people,” he adds.

Including the Global South in policy and decision making

Today, more efforts are due to make digital spaces more inclusive, globally. The need is to decolonise digital discussions that address the current imbalance in participation and promote a more comprehensive approach to tech decision-making.

“We need to do a better job at amplifying the voice of civil society from the global majority. There is lived experience and knowledge in our partners in the global majority that has a lot to contribute to these conversations, but often they’re not meaningfully engaged in these conversations,” he observes.

While there is high-level technical expertise in the Global South, these voices are often not meaningfully engaged in global digital talks. This exclusion can be attributed to several factors, including a lack of time and resources among civil society organisations in these regions.

“Many of our partners in the global majority have their hands full already. They are working on issues around climate, gender equality, or democracy. They don’t have time to provide comments on national AI strategies, and they often don’t speak digital,” Rutzen explains. To address this, the ICNL is doing its part. Initiatives like tech camps were launched, which bring civic space defenders from the Global South together to discuss current issues and how they might participate in digital discussions.

Surveillance and technology, today. Mapping the risks

The digital era, however, is not all about enabling civil society organisations. Technology is as good, ethically speaking, as the way and the reasons why it is put to use. In fact, surveillance practices have significantly transformed too, being now cheaper and more pervasive.

“The economics of surveillance have fundamentally changed, now we can easily end up moving from very targeted surveillance to a mass, large scale one. The marginal cost of surveilling that journalist, or the individual dissident, or the human rights defender, drops to virtually zero,” Rutzen warns. With mass surveillance being this feasible, it poses significant threats to the civic space.

Corporate surveillance is not out of the picture, either. Consider social media platforms, as an example, funded through advertising and leading to business models that prioritise predatory data use. “We have to fundamentally try to disrupt the business model focused on data extraction and monetisation,” Rutzen argues. The need, here, is for comprehensive legal frameworks that protect human rights in the digital era, highlighting the importance of addressing both state and corporate surveillance.

Opportunities and challenges in Artificial Intelligence

In this line of thought, we cannot take our look away from Artificial Intelligence. AI holds significant promise for improving governance, but it also poses risks of deepening existing inequalities. “It’s very important to ensure that we have a rights-respecting, people-centered approach to artificial intelligence. AI is the risk, but it’s also the opportunity,” Rutzen notes.

Many AI initiatives, indeed, focus on the majority of the population. That risks leaving behind those who are already disadvantaged. “From a business model perspective, it’s hard to get companies and governments to focus on those that are traditionally excluded because of power, privilege, or socio-economic class.” To address these challenges, “We’re trying to push for first principles around digital inclusion, which is meaningful, equitable, and safe access to the digital transformation for everyone, everywhere,” he says.

But as Rutzen highlights, AI has the potential to support human rights – if implemented ethically and inclusively. To that end, the public sector must take on a leading role in ensuring ethical AI practices. “I would challenge the public sector to take more of a leadership role. We want to have ethical AI, and responsible data governance, and this would just be in the very nature of ministries and public administrations.”

Advocating for the rule of justice

One thing is clear – every era of digital development and technological advancement carries opportunities, but also risks. This makes more salient that, generations after generations, societies are equipped with the critical look on reality to put tech into perspective.

In his role as a professor at Georgetown University, Rutzen emphasises the importance of using legal careers to protect human rights and promote justice. “I tell my students that the law can just as easily be used to undercut human rights as to protect them,” he says.

“Every generation has its goal over human rights. We’re in the midst of ours, and they should use their legal career to make the world a better place,” Rutzen advises. Laws can be manipulated by those in power to restrict freedoms, as seen in historical examples like apartheid laws and the Nuremberg Laws. “The goal should not be even the rule of law. It should be the rule of justice.”

Listen to all Digital Government Podcast episodes >>> ega.ee/digital-government-podcast