Academic

Land on Peer-Produced Human Rights Reporting

By Lawrence Solum

Molly Beutz Land (New York Law School) has posted Peer Producing Human Rights (Alberta Law Review, Vol. 46, No. 4, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The growth of collaborative technologies has spurred the development of projects such as Wikipedia, in which large groups of volunteers contribute to production in a decentralized and open format. The author analyzes how these methods of peer-based production can be applied to advance international human rights as well as the limitations of such a model in this field. An underlying characteristic of peer-based production, amateurism, increases capacity and participation. However, the involvement of ordinary individuals in the production of human rights reporting is also its greatest disadvantage, since human rights reports generated by citizen activists are less likely to be perceived as accurate, thereby detracting from the effectiveness of those reports. The author examines methods by which these disadvantages might be overcome and concludes by advocating for a collaborative approach, whereby peer-based production is augmented by training and certification by local professionals.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on September 24, 2009 (boomark / email).