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The ninth Toogdag by the Netherlands Network of Human Rights Research took place on June 11, 2026 at Erasmus University Rotterdam. It focus was on human rights in the age of algorithms and its organising committee consisted of Silvia Ciacchi, Sascha van Schendel-Romme, Masuma Shahid, Renée Knoop, Clara Boggini, Daan Albers, and Alberto Quintavalla.

2026 NNHRR Toogdag brought together academics to discuss how to safeguard human rights in the technological age. Discussions highlighted how digitalization is reshaping the relationship between governments, businesses, and citizens, while raising pressing questions about how to prioritise and protect human rights. Through a keynote presentation and parallel panels covering topics ranging from climate impacts of digital technologies, privacy considerations, the use of digital technologies in court cases to surveillance and democracy, the Toogdag fostered a multidisciplinary dialogue on how legal frameworks can respond to the rapid pace of technological change while ensuring that human rights remain central to digital transformation. 

The keynote by Daniel Pap, legal advisor at the Secretariat of the Steering Committee for New and Emerging Technologies at the Council of Europe, explored the legal significance of the Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law by the Council of Europe (Framework Convention). As a pioneering international treaty, the Framework Convention serves as a global benchmark for ensuring that AI systems are developed and deployed in ways that prioritise and protect human rights. Pap also emphasised the lifecycle approach of the Framework Convention, which imposes obligations on both states and private actors. The emphasis on transparency and stakeholder collaboration of the Framework Convention was also highlighted.

The first panel of the day focused on ‘Legal Challenges Across Health, Environment & Society’, highlighting how legal frameworks are increasingly being tested by the complex interplay between technological innovation and the living environment. Annkathrin Dix presented on Dutch e-waste governance through the lens of prevention that obliges states to exercise due diligence and intervention at the earliest possible stage, before environmental harm occurs. Barrie Sander focused on the coloniality of AI’s relationship with climate change and how a solidarity-based conception of human rights law may offer important avenues of resistance to reorient the AI lifecycle towards more emancipatory ends. Lastly, Eloise Ward presented on data transmission and corporate privacy in the ECtHR case Ships Waste Oil Collector and Others v the Netherlands, demonstrating that based on this case, protection afforded may depend less on the rights of the data holder than on the impact of the interference on others. The panel presentations considered the interaction between technological innovation and the living environment, and showed how existing legal regimes often respond only after harm has occurred, thereby underscoring the need for more preventative and solidarity-oriented approaches.

The second panel focused on ‘Digitalization in (Criminal) Justice’, demonstrating how rapid digitalisation is reshaping procedural rights and access to justice. Wojciech Jasiński and Dorota Czerwińska presented on the right not to incriminate oneself in the digital era and posited that because the approaches of countries differ on this matter, a thorough reflection on the rationales behind the right is necessary to prevent the development of a compromise built on strong and lasting foundations. Viltė Kristina Dessers followed on the use of large language model chatbots in courts and the consequences this might have for judicial independence and impartiality and the limitations that this brings as regards human oversight. Emma Rengers presented on law enforcement use of computer vision systems and the limitations this bring for human rights and demonstrated that the technical design and operation of these systems are imperative to prevent violations of human rights and administrative law. The final presentation by Gulnaz Alasgarova centered on digital barriers and hidden forms of control as regards access to justice in situations of domestic gendered violence, where the presenter advocated for building digital pathways and human rights-based digital justice systems. Across the presentations, a reoccurring message was that technological innovation must be accompanied by principled legal frameworks that preserve the right to fair trial and meaningful access to justice and that technology should support, rather than replace or undermine, legal decision-making and procedural protections.

The third panel focused on ‘Media and Activism’. Despite the broad focus on human rights issues in AI, this panel reminded us that there are also significant developments concerning platforms, algorithms, and surveillance that are foundational to democracy and freedom of expression. Melinda Rucz looked at journalism privileges and the tension between democratic needs and the constitutional protections actually guaranteed to the press. Alice Dejean de la Bâtie examined the surveillance of activism, including algorithmic surveillance, and how it implicates privacy, freedom of expression and association, and the chilling effect this can have. Vladimir Belev closed out the panel looking at media algorithms, media consumption, and radicalisation, looking at the right to customise media offerings in the age of new media. An overarching takeaway from this panel is that it is important to remember that preserving democratic institutions and freedoms is foundational to meaningfully addressing other human rights issues.

The fourth panel focused on ‘Privacy & Digital Systems’, highlighting the impact of technologies on State-citizen relations. Malou Beck presented an empirical paper on the digital barriers that citizens encounter when engaging with government and developed the concept of a responsive citizen and compared it to the idea of a responsive state. Isroni Muhammad Miraj Mirza delved into the digital inequalities that new technologies can generate for citizens and proposed a possible governance framework for AI and the Metaverse for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Sissy Katsoni turned to the role that private actors play in equipping governments with tools to surveil and geolocate their citizens and explored potential grounds for recognising private entities' responsibility. Lastly, Sophia Salziger explored the GDPR’s civil liability regime and feasible solutions that national courts can adopt to overcome the practical constraints that prevent them from properly assessing non-material damages arising from data protection infringements. The presentations demonstrated the growing complexity of responsibility in the digital age, where public functions are increasingly mediated by private actors and data-driven infrastructures, underscoring the need for legal approaches that ensure that innovation is accompanied by accountability and effective avenues for redress.

To conclude the 2026 NNHRR Toogdag, the network’s members – led by the chairs of the various NNHRR working groups – reflected during the final plenary session on pressing issues that practitioners and human rights researchers can no longer ignore in the digital age. The discussion centred on questions of responsibility for actions caused by digital technologies, considering the role of state bodies, including courts and data protection authorities, in responding to human rights violations arising in digital contexts, while also exploring whether new legislation is needed to address gaps in the current system. The plenary session further examined the growing impact of AI on human rights and the challenges this creates for existing regulatory frameworks. As AI becomes increasingly embedded in individuals’ lives, its effects cannot easily be understood as isolated instances of harm, raising questions about its broader impact on multiple human rights. The discussion also considered the role of private actors in contributing to human rights violations and the potential of soft-law instruments and ethical frameworks as initial steps towards accountability. Overall, 2026 NNHRR Toogdag demonstrated that digitalisation requires a continuous re-examination of how human rights may be impacted by technological progress and conversely, how human rights could help shape the digital transformation.

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All authors are affiliated with Erasmus University Rotterdam and were members of the 'Organising committee Toogdag 2026'.