The Case for a New Right to a Human Decision Under International Human Rights Law

The presentation discusses the problem of quality control for new human rights from one specific perspective – review and analysis of the actual justifications provided by norm entrepreneurs and law makers seeking to advance the recognition of new human rights through normative instruments (laws, treaties, declarations etc.) – and considers the application of this particular form of quality control to one putative digital human right – the right to a human decision. The quality control criteria presented here for evaluating the justifications proffered for new human rights – moral claims and considerations, problem analysis and broad political support – are mostly descriptive. They identify and explain how new human rights have been de facto justified in the past. They do not propose a new normative approach for how candidate human rights should be justified. In the same vein, the discussion of the right to a human decision explores mostly how such a right has actually been justified, up until now, and whether such a justification comports to the existing pattern of justificatory structures used in international human rights law.