decentralized web, brain devices, biomedical & AI technologies.
Author: Dr. Evgenia Leonova
“When someone is in a safe place, I believe that your mind rests” – Franklin Moreno, et al
Human Dignity
Dignity is often understood as protecting individuals not only as legal persons but also in their concrete gestalt, their traits and characteristics, their personality
Dignity commands respect for subjectivity, which entails that persons are not treated as mere things, devoid of subjectivity. This grounds the prohibition of objectification.
Before going into the depth of understanding human rights on mental integrity and what it implies I would like to start with the few recent, published this year, academic articles.
The cross-national study conducted by the representatives from Newark, New Jersey, USA, and San Pedro Sula, Cortés, Honduras,youth expressed emotions of anger and anxiety in conditions of violence and insecurity; and sense of calm and happiness in conditions of safety.The study demonstrated the integrity of the mental health of the people is defined by the level of security and violence in the society. The researchers defined the emotional security across four contexts of community violence: policing, gangs, family, and other neighborhood residents.
So our mental state as a human being relies on a feeling of safety.
As it turned out this question has multiple components and varies depending on the culture. But still there are certain aspects that we all have in common, the most significant ones.
Other cross-national study demonstrated that personal safety comprises three facets: Feeling of Safety (i.e., experiencing security in day-to-day life); Fear of Crime (i.e., being afraid of victimization); and Safety Confidence (i.e., trusting one’s own ability to remain safe) [2].
All that recent research shows that our mind wellness depends on the safety and sense of freedom of the surrounding environment: digital or real.
Another interesting research has been done regarding “the potential of a decentralized web for coordinating large brain-computer constellations, and its associated benefits, focusing in particular on the conceptual and ethical challenges this innovation may pose pertaining to (1) Identity, (2) Sovereignty (encompassing Autonomy, Authenticity, and Ownership), (3) Responsibility and Accountability, and (4) Privacy, Safety, and Security.
The researchers concluded that while a decentralised web can address some concerns and mitigate certain risks, underlying ethical issues persist. The fundamental questions about entity definition within these networks, the distinctions between individuals and collectives, and responsibility distribution within and between networks, demand further exploration”.
How do we understand the human right to Identity, Sovereignty, Accountability, Security.
“Charles Malik, the inventor of the right in today’s form, argued that the problem of the age is ‘the struggle between the human person and his own personality and freedom on the one hand, and the endless pressure of groups on the other’;
society, nations or other groups that seek to determine the very being of the person ‘by psychological pressure, by economic pressure, by every possible means of propaganda and social pressure’. Protecting against such overwhelming pressures was a central aim of the Declaration in the view of Malik, noting that the ‘mind and conscience are the most sacred and inviolable things’. This formulation grew into the right of freedom of thought during the drafting of the Declaration. The later Nobel laureate René Cassin proclaimed freedom of thought as the ‘basis of all other rights’ with ‘metaphysical significance’, a remark that illustrates the exalted status drafters accorded to it”.
One of the earliest international debates on protection for the mind concerned the concept of ‘mental harm’ in Article II b of the Genocide Convention (1948).
More recent instruments recognise a complementary right to physiological or mental integrity (Articles 5.1 ACHR, 3.1 ECFR, 17 CRPD). The ECtHR developed it from the right to private life (Article 8 ECHR).
The novelty of neurotechnologies is their direct access to the brain and the resulting powers to extract data and manipulate physiological processes with potentially considerable effects on body, mind, or behaviour of persons, without the active participation of persons and therefore possibly without their consent. Concerns about misuse of such powers over persons by governments or other actors suggest themselves. Neurotechnologies allow to affect what people think or feel, how they perceive or experience the world, they may change parts of the personality and often provide a sometimes-unprecedented degree of control over another person, which can be misused and exploited. It might be worthy to recall that precursor methods such as psychosurgery or behavior modification have a dark history even in western democracies, and so have the abuses of psychiatric methods for dissidents in many countries.
To sum up, the experts are mentioning 3 main directions in which human rights remain underexplored and uncovered: rights to mental integrity, freedom of thought, and human dignity.
The first global standard-setting document on the ethics of neurotechnologies: ‘The Universal Declaration on Human Rights and Neurotechnology’ is still a work in progress.
Ref.
Tsymbal, B., Kriukov, O., Radchenko, O., Dakal, A., Kvasiuk, V. (2024). Personal Security as a Component of Sustainable Development of Society and the State. In: Shchokin, R., Iatsyshyn, A., Kovach, V., Zaporozhets, A. (eds) Digital Technologies in Education. Studies in Systems, Decision and Control, vol 529. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57422-1_14
Franklin Moreno, Sarah Hoegler Dennis, E. Mark Cummings, Paul Boxer,
“When someone is in a safe place, I believe that your mind rests” emotional security amid community violence: A cross-national study with youth in Newark, New Jersey, USA, and San Pedro Sula, Cortés, Honduras,
International Journal of Intercultural Relations,
Volume 99,
2024,
101941,
ISSN 0147-1767,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2024.101941.
Bublitz, C. (2024). Neurotechnologies and human rights: restating and reaffirming the multi-layered protection of the person. The International Journal of Human Rights, 28(5), 782–807. https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2024.2310830
Lyreskog, D.M., Zohny, H., Mann, S.P. et al. Decentralising the Self – Ethical Considerations in Utilizing Decentralised Web Technology for Direct Brain Interfaces. Sci Eng Ethics 30, 28 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-024-00492-2
Safety, Danger, and Protection in the Family and Community
Edition 1st Edition; First Published 2023; Imprint Routledge; Pages 13; eBook ISBN 9781003308096
Diego M.R. Tudesco, Anand Deshpande, Asif A. Laghari, Abdullah A. Khan, Ricardo T. Lopes, R. Jenice Aroma, Kumudha Raimond, Lin Teng, Asiya Khan
Book Editor(s):Shilpa Mahajan, Mehak Khurana, Vania Vieira Estrela
First published: 22 March 2024
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781394196470.ch12