In September 2023, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) joined the numerous Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council which, over the past decade, analysed the subject of the human rights impacts of new technologies and it published a thematic study on ‘new technologies and enforced disappearances’. The Chapter briefly presents the gestation and contents of the study, but its main aim is to analyse the role played – if any – by new technologies, and in particular digital, information and communication technologies, in the regular activities of the WGEID, with a view at identifying innovative methods to carry out its mandate. The functions of the WGEID are illustrated, together with the opportunities that new technologies may offer to perform them. The challenges currently posed to the WGEID and its ‘counterparts’ by the use of new technologies in terms of security, verification and accessibility are also considered. The concluding remarks offer a reflection on how some of the findings and observations made with regard to the WGEID could be relevant also for the work of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances.

Chapter 1 is the introductory chapter. It introduces the reader to the two seemingly complementary global imperatives of ‘dealing with the past’ and ensuring non-repetition of mass atrocities. The chapter sets up a conundrum about transitional justice, ontological (in)securities, and non-recurrence. It then proceeds with a summary of the book’s key questions and core arguments. The chapter subsequently puts forward a brief history of the evolution of transitional justice as a global project, a vehicle of peace as well as security, discussing the claimed intersections between transitional justice and ‘Never Again’. This is followed by brief notes on methodology and contributions of the book. In outlining the contributions, the chapter demonstrates how the book interacts with and enriches scholarly knowledge in the field of transitional justice as well as in ontological security studies. Finally, the chapter introduces the outline of the book with brief chapter summaries.

Chapter 5 continues to explore the connections and disconnections between the transitional justice project and non-recurrence of conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). It proposes that education can make or break meaningful assurances of conflict non-recurrence. The chapter demonstrates how ethnically segregated history teaching in BiH plays a key role in the maintenance of a post-conflict status quo which has frozen certain anxieties around the uncertain future of peace in the country. Further, the chapter posits that the global project of transitional justice, while not responsible for the burgeoning ethnonationalism, has actively made bad situations worse with its short-sighted security priorities and general misunderstanding of security as lived experience. In particular, the chapter focuses on how and why the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia undertook a role of an educator of the BiH youth and public and how the advocates of the transitional justice project have ignored the complexity of the prevention needs of the BiH society.

The intense search for security has, over the past half-century, become increasingly contradictory in the context of the current global unsettling. The techno-scientific search for increased security is now generating circles of increasing insecurity. This chapter is concerned to understand the foundational unsettling of that world space and its consequences for human security in general, including increasing ontological insecurity. The earliest and most dramatic example of this process is the nuclear revolution. With the dropping of the atomic bomb on civilians towards the end of World War II, the search for an ultimate weapon of mass destruction that would end the war created the conditions for escalating insecurity. The chapter documents elements of this process but, more importantly, seeks to broaden the usual emphasis, drawing the mechanics of military security into encompassing questions of human security (see also Chapter 8 on human security). The chapter draws parallels between the areas of nuclear security, anti-terrorist security, drone assassinations, and biosecurity to document the unsettling of the meaning and practice of contemporary global attempts to securitise.

This chapter deals with cash (banknotes and coins), the oldest and most traditional form of money in existence. Cash involves a paradox: On the one hand, it is technologically less advanced that modern means of payments like cards and apps, so one could presume that it should decline in use and eventually disappear. On the other, however, evidence for almost the whole world shows that the demand for cash is increasing, although it is used less frequently for certain types of transactions like online commerce, retail stores, and restaurants. Criminal activities may explain part of the puzzle, but not much. One advantage of cash is that it can be seen and touched, therefore appealing to the senses and conveying a sense of security. Another is that it ensures absolute privacy of transactions. Other important characteristics explaining the popularity of cash are that it is simple (it requires no technology or complication whatsoever); definitive (it instantly settles any financial obligation); private and personal (it appeals to the desire of confidentiality); and self-sufficient (it does not depend on any other infrastructure functioning). We conclude therefore that physical cash is a useful complement of a robust and diversified monetary system, in which digital means of payments gradually prevail.

This chapter theorizes payment infrastructures as crucial material sites of hegemonic power in three different regards. First, the material form of payment technologies and the uneven routes of circulation produced by them are an integral part of the ways in which modern money and finance exercise power. Payment technology is not a neutral infrastructure, but a carrier of hegemonic power and potential site of hegemonic contestation. Second, payment infrastructure is inextricably connected to state security and sovereignty. State security and sovereignty were enabled and made durable with and through the payment infrastructure. Third, infrastructures are historically durable, though they may be rerouted or reinscribed. This chapter distills three elements that typify the hegemonic power of infrastructure and that can be used when taking “infrastructure” as the starting point for analysis. These elements are (1) sedimentation, (2) reach, and (3) disposition. The arguments are illustrated empirically by reference to the so-called financial war on terror, where financial infrastructures became a major but highly depoliticized site of security power. Empirically, this chapter focuses on the way in which the payment technology SWIFT and financial transactions are being appropriated for security purposes.

Disinformation and the spread of false information online have become a defining feature of social media use. While this content can spread in many ways, recently there has been an increased focus on one aspect in particular: social media algorithms. These content recommender systems provide users with content deemed ‘relevant’ to them but can be manipulated to spread false and harmful content. This chapter explores three core components of algorithmic disinformation online: amplification, reception and correction. These elements contain both unique and overlapping issues and in examining them individually, we can gain a better understanding of how disinformation spreads and the potential interventions required to mitigate its effects. Given the real-world harms that disinformation can cause, it is equally important to ground our understanding in real-world discussions of the topic. In an analysis of Twitter discussions of the term ‘disinformation’ and associated concepts, results show that while disinformation is treated as a serious issue that needs to be stopped, discussions of algorithms are underrepresented. These findings have implications for how we respond to security threats such as a disinformation and highlight the importance of aligning policy and interventions with the public’s understanding of disinformation.

Conclusions: I summarize some of the shortcomings of current international legal regimes for dealing adequately with grand corruption, summarize some promising avenues for doing so; evaluate the proposal to create an International Anti-Corruption Court, tackle some of the admitted shortcomings of my approach and note the convergence of current anti-corruption struggles with other social movements.

This book is a study of non-alignment as it was conceptualised and developed in the context of modern India, particularly in the period immediately after independence. The main architect of India’s external affairs at this juncture was the first Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. The book is restricted to events that took place during the time he held office, between the years 1947 and 1964. In particular, this study aims to study non-alignment as an approach to security and as an approach to politics. There are three themes along which the book proceeds. First, the book contends that non-alignment is understood vaguely and inaccurately, leading to protracted debates about its past relevance and continued significance; secondly, that non-alignment frames politics innovatively; and thirdly, that this is an immensely precarious wager that encounters many points of resistance, which are not adequately engaged with in a sustained theoretical manner in literature on non-alignment. Thus, the book will argue that there has yet to emerge a serious critique of the political nature of non-alignment.

Lay people often are misinformed about what is a secure password, what are the various types of security threats to passwords or password-protected resources, and the risks of certain compromising practices such as reusing passwords and required password expiration. Expert knowledge about password security has evolved considerably over time, but on many points, research supports general agreement among experts about best practices. Remarkably, though perhaps not surprisingly, there is a sizable gap between what experts agree on and what lay people believe and do. The knowledge gap might exist and persist because of intermediaries, namely professionals and practitioners as well as technological interfaces such as password meters and composition rules. In this chapter, we identify knowledge commons governance dilemmas that arise within and between different communities (expert, professional, lay) and examine implications for other everyday misinformation problems.