The Budapest Centre is proud to share its latest policy paper Misuse of Artificial Intelligence: Occupied Palestinian Territories. Case study.

As a new piece of the Artificial Intelligence series of the Budapest Centre for Mass Atrocities Prevention, this paper offers an insight on how the Israeli authorities apply tools of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories by pointing to the significance and risks of using AI during conflict—without wishing to provide an exhaustive and detailed list of challenges and their respective international activities. Our aim is to further engender the International Community’s political will to address these threats from the perspective of conflict escalation and mass atrocity crimes prevention.

The authors and the Budapest Centre hope that this research will prove useful in particular for young readers who wish to learn more about the ongoing conflict in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the role AI plays in mass atrocity crimes.

You can find the paper here 

The Budapest Centre for Mass Atrocities Prevention invites you to check out this interview to Dr. Gyorgy Tatar, the Director of the Centre and Chair of the Board of Trustees, on the Uyghur Genocide - following the last report published by the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy.

The interviewer is Laura Pistarini Teixeira Nunes - an intern both at the Budapest Centre and the Institute for Cultural Relations Policy - who has written her master's dissertation on the persecution of Uyghurs in China.

You can find both the interview and her short article in the following link:

http://culturalrelations.org/mass-atrocities-in-xinjiang-specificities-and-international-response/ 

We are offering an internship position starting from June 15th for a minimum of 4 months.

Applications must be submitted by 31/05/2021.

You can find further information regarding the position and how to apply here.

The Budapest Centre for Mass Atrocities Prevention strongly encourages its visitors to take a look at the following high-level event that took place on the 12th of May. The event comprised both State Representatives, members of NGOs and civil society organizations, academics and personal testimonies.

The international community has been brought together to take a stand in the Uyghur Question on this occasion, and some of the propositions and requests consisted of: a tougher response on the part of the UN over China in order to take steps to solve the issue, including a more present stance by the Human Rights Council, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner, and the General Assembly; the imposition of an international and independent investigative mechanism in order to examine and monitor human rights violations in the region and hold perpetrators accountable; the end of importation from Xinjiang to avoid financing abuses.

The position of the speakers can be efficiently summarized by the words of Agnès Callamard, current Secretary-General of Amnesty International, who stressed that silence regarding the situation in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region “tarnishes the human rights system, weakens the UN overall and betrays our duty to the people of China”.

You can find the full discussion in the link http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/watch/high-level-virtual-event-on-the-situation-of-uyghurs-and-other-turkic-muslim-minorities-in-xinjiang/6253877575001/?term=.

We invite you to read the essay "What is at stake in handling the case of the Uyghurs?" prepared by the Director of the Centre, Dr. Gyorgy Tatar.

The Budapest Centre for Mass Atrocities Prevention thereby urges the International Community to take all appropriate measures discussed in the document to tackle the Uyghur Genocide and prevent further escalation.

Click here to download the essay.

We also share the Joint Statement of Alice Wairimu Nderitu, United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, and Michelle Bachelet, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, on the situation in Myanmar.

Regrettably, the UN Security Council has not learned the lessons of the genocide committed against the Rohingya people in 2016: its statement released yesterday fails to decide on taking prompt and effective steps for preventing the escalation of the crisis and protecting the population of Myanmar from mass atrocity crimes.

HWPL Statement on Human Rights Crisis in Myanmar

Joint Statement by Alice Wairimu Nderitu, United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, and Michelle Bachelet, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, on the situation in Myanmar

 

In light of increasing levels of intolerance, discrimination and group hatred in Europe, the CEE Prevent Net project aims at safeguarding young people by strengthening their resilience toward these phenomena and their skills to contribute to a peaceful and democratic society. Building on the previous project European Fair Skills, CEE Prevent Net focuses on Central and Eastern Europe and Eastern Germany, since this region shares common socio-historic experiences, structural conditions and current challenges.

The project’s main objectives comprise fostering the capacity of practitioners from social/youth work and non-formal education to deal with intolerance, group hatred and violence among young people; creating a platform for multi-agency cooperation in the project countries and across the CEE region; mustering support from stakeholders and policy-makers beyond political partisanship and societal cleavages; and raising awareness for CEE issues and approaches in European and international prevention networks, where this region is still under-represented.

The intention of this series of papers is to raise awareness of the risks of artificial intelligence (AI) in the realm of human rights, and more specifically, mass atrocities. They are written by a group of young research assistants during their internship at the Budapest Centre who will finish their graduate studies in the next months. The articles target people of their age specifically to introduce them to the issue of AI in the context of mass atrocities and grant them a broad overview of it. The papers do not go in-depth; they merely introduce the readers to the topic of AI through the lens of mass atrocities and human rights. While academics are not the primary target, they are welcome to utilize the paper for their own purpose.

“The Rise of Artificial Intelligence: Risks from the Perspective of Mass Atrocities” is the first paper written of this series and presents a global introduction to this topic. Several risks linked to or run by AI in the field of mass atrocities are detailed, such as sensitive data, the question of ethics, cybercrime or warfare.

The second paper that will be published soon regards the policies and recommendations made by international and regional organizations in response to the risks that AI may pose to human rights abuses, including the perpetration of mass atrocities.

More papers on this topic are planned to be published on the social media platforms of the Budapest Center for Mass Atrocities in the forthcoming months.

Young and ambitious researchers are most welcome to participate in this endeavor!!

Stay tuned!


Find the links to the articles below:

The Rise of Artificial Intelligence: Risks from the Perspective of Mass Atrocities

The Rise of Artificial Intelligence in The Context of Mass Atrocities: Policies and Recommendations from International and Regional Organisations

How AI can either exacerbate or prevent genocides: Reflection based on the 10 Stages of Genocide