Are smart glasses a threat to privacy, data protection or even human rights? Law Department researcher Natalia Menéndez González reviews the product’s unconvincing ‘privacy’ features and highlights initial concerns raised by European data protection authorities.

In this commentary, Fatema Jafari, a former Policy Leader Fellow at EUI, calls on the European Union and the rest of the ‘international community’ not to tolerate Taliban brutality but to keep up the pressure on Taliban leaders to respect fundamental human rights and political freedoms.

EUI Professor of History Alexander Etkind and Rutgers University Sociologist Sergei Erofeev focus on Russian democratic leader Alexei Navalny, urging readers to recognise his efforts in the fight against corruption in Russia, and entreating Amnesty International to reinstate the man’s status as a ‘prisoner of conscience’.

COVID-19 has forced derogations from and limitations to rights at every level. However, there are some populations for which the pandemic has generated rights victories previously considered out of reach. EUI Professor of Public International Law Neha Jain puts the spotlight on one such vulnerable population––prisoners––to explore how COVID-19 has helped change the discourse on the rights of detainees to ignite prospects for prison reform.

France’s reactions to the terrible terrorist attack of 16 October seem to imply that the fight against terrorism might justify sacrificing human rights and the rule of law. EUI Ph.D. researcher in Law Sophie Duroy looks at the issue.

Nearly 10 years ago, the UN first articulated a business responsibility to respect human rights in their supply chains. In this article, School of Transnational Governance Policy Leader Fellow Martin Curley argues that going forwards, civil society, especially trade unions, should play a much greater role in defining how this responsibility is fulfilled, especially at the international level.

In this article, STG Policy Leader Fellow Sebnem Kenis discusses the gendered implications of COVID-19 across a range of human rights.