Katalyst was invited to participate in a recent consultation for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights entitled Towards rights-compatible use of digital technologies in stakeholder engagement: Keeping humans in the loop.
With stakeholder engagement a key element in human rights due diligence requirements, and extraordinarily rapid advances in digital technologies like AI, we are pleased to see OHCHR investing in this effort to take stock of recent developments, and to collect input on possibilities and risks posed by the interaction of new tech and new stakeholder engagement efforts.
With Katalyst’s focus on the future of global value chain governance, we see questions about the role of new technology and how stakeholder engagement should develop and relate to the broader collective bargaining landscape as being critically important. This is especially true given that technologies are being developed and deployed far faster than democratic processes can consider their implications and reach a consensus on if and when to regulate their use.
We are grateful to the organizers for inviting us to participate, and we look forward to the report to the UN Human Rights Council which will be forthcoming later in 2026.
