At the heart of UNESCO’s latest collaboration with The American University of Paris (AUP), Professors Claudia Roda and Susan Perry are working to create an environment that addresses Artificial Intelligence (AI) developments within a governance structure and regulatory system founded on the International Human Rights Framework. AUP Professors Perry and Roda have been newly appointed as the UNESCO Co-Chairholders for a UNESCO Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights. 

“This chair appointment consolidates years of collaboration with UNESCO,” said Professor Perry, who specializes in international human rights law and is a professor in the Department of History and Politics, and directs both the Master’s in International Affairs and the Master’s in Diplomacy and International Law. Earlier in her career, Professor Perry received the 2002 UNESCO International Women’s Day prize for her book entitled Eye to Eye: Women Practising Development Across Cultures, written in collaboration with former AUP President Celeste Schenck. 

“Our collaboration will involve many international collaborative actions in the interests of implementing the Ethics of AI principles stipulated in UNESCO’s recommendation on the Ethics of AI and progress toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals,” said Professor Roda, whose background is in artificial intelligence, and who directs the Master’s in Human Rights and Data Science and serves as a professor in the Department of Computer Science, Mathematics and Environmental Science.

The UNESCO Chair establishment is for a renewable, four-year agreement. As newly awarded Co-Chairholders, Professors Roda and Perry join the ranks of roughly 900 UNESCO chairs and UNITWIN Networks worldwide in 125 countries within the UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs Programme (of which only 22 UNESCO chairs have been established at US universities) at a critical time for the advancement of discussions regarding the intersections between artificial intelligence and human rights. This is the first US UNESCO Chair in AI and Human Rights, which will cooperate with the other 20 UNESCO Chairs and UNITWIN networks in AI.