Institute of Political Science and International Relations

The publication New Challenges to the Protection of Human Rights was prepared by the employees of the Department of the Strategy of International Relations of the Jagiellonian University, lawyers and political scientists. It presents a multifaceted approach to new, frequently controversial and incompletely solved problems associated with the protection of human rights.

The first part there is a discussion of new regulations according to which the United States are obliged to determine clear conditions for the transfer of personal data, to determine precise conditions when public organs may access personal data and the limiting and supervision which preclude common access to such data.

Chapter two refers to the problem of humanitarian intervention – an instrument which was applied for many decades in order to protect human rights which are violated on a great scale. On the one hand, the concept of “Responsibility for protection” stipulates the conditions for the employment of means of direct enforcement in reference to a third-party state. On the other hand, it constitutes an attempt at applying international control to unilaterally engaged military interventions conducted for humanitarian reasons. Currently, 12 years after the document was ratified, the concept and the application of this concept continues to be a source of theoretical and practical controversy.

Chapter three engages an important but still underexplored problem of the analysis of the great digital collections of data, i.e. the popular concept of Big Data, in the context of the possible violations of the right to privacy. The present-day technology enables the creation of algorithms which combine a large number of these seemingly insignificant elements and they create a detailed personal profile. This thing alone carries a great risk associated with the loss of privacy.

Chapter four is devoted to the problem of acquiring raw materials which are necessary for the production of energy. The modern economy, which is oriented toward the processing of large amounts of data, cannot exist without a supply of a sufficient amount of energy. Ensuring energy- related safety is increasingly reducible to a working out of a compromise between the interests of an individual and the interests of the state.