The Resource Centre's annual Mary Robinson Speaker Series spotlights some of the most significant emerging issues within the business and human rights movement. It looks to advance the debate by bringing together people from business, investment, legislative and human rights communities, as well as voices speaking on behalf of those most impacted by egregious human rights abuse.

For 2025 our focus fell on a topic that's not just a big issue for our movement, but is increasingly under the spotlight globally - accountability in Big Tech.

Tech companies occupy an increasingly dominant position in our societies, and their power, wealth and influence – from social media giants, to communications firms, to surveillance companies – are growing at pace. Widespread infringements on privacy, dissemination of hate speech and online violence, and undermining democratic processes in the face of rising authoritarianism are but a few of the failings of the sector.

A different future is possible. Tech can be deployed for public good: to enhance knowledge and democratic debate, to end drudgery at work and build shared prosperity through productivity gains. By ensuring responsiveness to the needs and lived realities of marginalised rightsholders - from frontline communities to displaced populations to workers - the sector can redeem itself. With robust regulation, good-faith compliance and adequate oversight, technology could bring people together and promote shared prosperity.

Our host, Mary Robinson, and keynote speaker, Kenyan litigator Mercy Mutemi were joined by an expert panel of rightsholder, regulator, and private sector voices for this online event. Together, they identified the urgent steps needed to arrest the ongoing deterioration of protections for people and democracy in the digital age, and reflected on the opportunity to re-orientate the tech sector toward the public good. They focused on the role of smart regulation, spotlighting grassroots and frontline perspectives, and use of the Resource Centre evidence base to highlight both rising abuse (including of human rights defenders challenging corporate violations) and the opportunity for better practice.

Host - Mary Robinson

Mary Robinson is a co-founder of Project Dandelion, which is a women-led global campaign for climate justice, Adjunct Professor for Climate Justice at Trinity College Dublin, and a member of The Elders. She served as President of Ireland from 1990-1997 and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002. She is a member of the Club of Madrid and the recipient of numerous honours and awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States Barack Obama. Between 2013 and 2016, Mary served as the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy in three roles; first for the Great Lakes region of Africa, then on Climate Change leading up to the Paris Agreement and in 2016 as his Special Envoy on El Niño and Climate. Her Foundation, the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, established in 2010, came to a planned end in April 2019.

A former President of the International Commission of Jurists and former chair of the Council of Women World Leaders she was President and founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative from 2002-2010 and served as Honorary President of Oxfam International from 2002-2012. She was Chancellor of the University of Dublin from 1998 to 2019.

Mary Robinson serves as Patron of the International Science Council and Patron of the Board of the Institute of Human Rights and Business, is an Ambassador for The B Team, in addition to being a board member of several organisations including the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the Aurora Foundation. Recently she became joint Honorary President of the Africa Europe Foundation. Mary’s memoir, ‘Everybody Matters’ was published in September 2012 and her book, ‘Climate Justice - Hope, Resilience and the Fight for a Sustainable Future’ was published in September 2018. She is also co-host of a podcast on the climate crisis, called ‘Mothers of Invention’.

Keynote speaker - Mercy Mutemi

Mercy is an audacious African litigator and human rights - in - tech architect. She is the co-founder of Oversight Lab Africa, which aims to achieve fair and equitable technology across Africa through research and strategic litigation. She is the Managing Partner at Nzili & Sumbi Advocates, a law firm with branches in rural kenya that centres human rights in the practice of law.

Mercy is best known for leading the first transnational litigation against Meta Platforms, representing content moderators from across the African continent who claimed human trafficking, exploitative working conditions, and psychological trauma. In a related effort, she's also leading a pivotal litigation concerning the algorithmic amplification of harm, where she's secured a precedential decision affirming the authority of constitutional courts to examine social media algorithms and their impact on human rights.

Our panellists:

Agnes Callamard - Secretary General, Amnesty International

João Brant - Secretary of Digital Policies - Social Communication Secretariat; Presidency of Brazil

Juana Lee - Associate Director, Corporate Engagement, SHARE

Jurgita Miseviciute - Head of Public Policy and Government Affairs, Proton

Gayatri Khandhadai - Head of Technology and Human Rights, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre