On 14 July 2026, I spoke on behalf of ITU during Panel 8, “The Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Artificial Intelligence,” at the 19th session of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), in the Assembly Hall of the Palais des Nations in Geneva. The panel brought together Indigenous representatives from the Arctic, North America, and Eastern Europe/Russian Federation/Central Asia, alongside representatives of Australia and the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions. The full session is archived on UN Web TV.
Human Rights Council
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Governance by Procurement: How AI Rights Became a Bilateral Negotiation
(Originally published on the Harvard Kennedy School website)
On February 26, 2026, the CEO of one of the world’s most powerful AI companies published an open letter refusing a government ultimatum. The Department of War had threatened to designate Anthropic a “supply chain risk”, a label reserved for U.S. adversaries, never before applied to an American company, and to invoke the Defense Production Act to compel the removal of two safeguards: prohibitions on mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. Dario Amodei refused. Within 24 hours, the Pentagon followed through, blacklisting Anthropic as a national security risk and ordering all military contractors to immediately cease commercial activity with the company. Anthropic said it would fight the designation in court.
From Policy to Procurement: Operationalizing Trustworthy AI
Session at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva
In Geneva and beyond, much of the debate on AI governance still revolves around abstraction—principles, ethical frameworks, good intentions. Yet as AI becomes embedded in the machinery of both states and corporations, an urgent question arises: how do we ensure that public procurement and deployment of AI respects human dignity?
This is the focus of a new report from the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights. Titled Artificial Intelligence Procurement and Deployment: Ensuring Alignment with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, it addresses a critical blind spot: what happens when public institutions and private actors use—but do not develop—AI systems?
I had the opportunity to be consulted during the preparation of this report. I believe it marks a necessary step forward. But it is only a step.