Discriminació, desinformació, polarització i violència al ciberespai: quin paper per les normes Internacionals? (Discrimination, misinformation, polarization and violence in cyberspace: what role for international standards?) is the title of the project to be conducted by members of the Research Group on Public International Law and International Relations at the UPF Department of Law, with the aim of analysing various non-conventional threats to security that require special treatment in cyberspace.

 “The project aims to reflect on the theoretical and practical challenges posed by some phenomena on digital platforms”.

The UPF project is among the six that were selected as part of the 2020 announcement to award grants to research in the field of peace by the International Catalan Institute for Peace (ICIP). This line of grants, endowed with a total of 60,000 euros, is announced annually through the Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR). 

The Research Group on Public International Law and International Relations, which is to receive a grant of 8,000 euros, is to carry out the project during 2021. It will be led by Caterina García Segura, full professor of International Relations and director of the group, as principal investigator, with the participation of lecturers Josep Ibáñez, Sílvia Morgades and Adrià Rodríguez-Pérez in the research team.

A reflection on the different challenges facing digital platforms

As Adrià Rodríguez-Pérez states, “the project aims to reflect on the theoretical and practical challenges posed by some phenomena on digital platforms, such as discrimination, misinformation, polarization and violence, in the form of non-conventional threats to security that require special treatment in cyberspace”. To do so, the research group will illustrate some such activities carried out on social networks and instant messaging applications.

Another project goal is to study the various initiatives that have been proposed to curb these threats, both from the private sphere (privacy policies, contracts, codes of conduct, initiatives of civil society, etc.) and from the public sphere (state laws against hate speech and misinformation, regional or international recommendations and codes of good practice in terms of misinformation, etc.), with special emphasis on creating global standards for cyberspace. “This treatment will enable recommending international policy initiatives to handle these challenges”, concludes Adrià Rodríguez-Pérez, who as well as being an adjunct lecturer with the UPF Department of Law is a researcher in public policy at Scytl Innovating Democracy.

An organization that seeks to promote a culture of peace

The International Catalan Institute for Peace (ICIP) is a research, dissemination and action organization whose purpose is to promote the culture of peace in the society of Catalonia and internationally and give Catalonia an active role as an agent of peace in the world.

Besides UPF, other universities have received grants in the 2020 call; Ramon Llull, Vic, Autonomous of Barcelona, Girona and Barcelona. The selected works (from among some twenty submitted) are related to the prevention of violent extremism, the analysis of truth commissions, political and emotional polarization and the recidivism of ex-combatants in Colombia.