Late June, Digital Freedom Fund (DFF) and La Quadrature du Net gathered around 30 activists, litigators and researchers in Marseille at our Digital Environmental Justice Workshop (Workshop) to jointly tackle environmental degradation and human rights violations resulting from the artificial intelligence (AI) and digital infrastructure boom. DFF also used this Workshop to launch our new AI and Digital Infrastructure Strategic Litigation Hub.

Workshop Content

Against the backdrop of the magnificent and multicultural Marseille, we unpacked various climate justice and AI accountability issues, including the environmental and human costs of data centres, climate misinformation and countering online and digital threats such as strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) to environmental activism.

In addition to identifying the most pressing issues facing us in the digital infrastructure sector, we also focused on strategic litigation as a tool for holding Big Tech, governments, and other actors accountable for the extensive harms they have caused to the environment and humans due to their misuse of technology and degradation of digital developments.

Under the guidance of skilled facilitators, including Natascha Hospedales (Client Earth), Christiaan van Veen (Independent) and Charlie Holt (Climate Defense & Coalition Against Slapps in Europe), we unpacked the rich tapestry of legal pathways available for striving for human and environmental rights protection in the digital sector. These pathways included constitutional law, international human rights law, administrative law, and emerging EU laws, such as the Digital Services Act, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, and the Anti-SLAPPs Directive. The importance of centring those most affected by a particular digital harm, for example, local communities living close to emerging data centres, in any litigation efforts was also emphasised by various participants.

One of the last sessions of the workshop offered an exciting tempo change. Participants were invited by Fieke Jansen (Critical Infrastructure Lab & Green Screen Coalition) and Alexandra Hache (Digital Defenders Partnership & Fembloc) to imagine alternative digital worlds that centre our planet and people. Too often in digital rights spaces, we get so caught up discussing the problems and mass atrocities currently facing us that we lose sight of the ability to imagine an alternative reality where the power and profit of a few do not dominate. It was incredible to see the exciting alternative justice-based futures that we can imagine. We sincerely hope that we can contribute to making elements of these futures a reality.

Launching our new AI & Digital Infrastructure Strategic Litigation Hub

Our last session of the Workshop was used to launch our exciting new AI and Digital Infrastructure Strategic Litigation Hub (AI Hub).

Responding to calls from key stakeholders within the digital rights community, including our grantees, event participants, decolonising consultants and funders, we are rearranging our Community Programme in a way that emphasises continuous collaboration and enhanced knowledge and skill sharing.

Rather than having standalone events on digital rights topics, we will now organise our work around various strategic litigation hubs (Hubs). These Hubs shall focus on key digital rights thematic topics such as AI accountability, digital democracy and human rights protection in the digital infrastructure sector.

The core goals of these Hubs are to (i) foster meaningful and long-lasting collaborations amongst participants and (ii) collectively brainstorm and bring about strategic litigation cases on digital rights issues.

AI & Digital Infrastructure Strategic Litigation Hub

The AI Hub is our first Hub. The goal of the AI Hub is to foster collaboration on strategic litigation holding Big Tech, governments and other relevant actors accountable for the harms caused by AI—an increasingly pervasive force in nearly every aspect of our lives. Whether through its implementation in the provision of digital services or its material embodiment as digital infrastructure, AI is provoking, facilitating, and exacerbating social injustice and human rights violations.

The AI ecosystem includes AI development companies like OpenAI, but also platforms, online service providers, and Big Tech corporations such as Amazon, Meta, TikTok, Google, Microsoft, and Apple. These companies are increasingly embedding AI into their operations, relying heavily on large data centers and the extraction of raw materials. AI tools are being deployed across a wide range of applications, including online searches, content moderation, gig work, facial recognition, border control, law enforcement, fraud detection, defense, and warfare.

AI is impacting human rights across social, political, and commercial life. Surveillance tools violate our rights to privacy, data protection, equality, non-discrimination, freedom of movement, and the right to asylum. In the gig economy, AI discriminates, undermining the right to work. The material demands of AI infrastructure pose a challenge to access to a healthy environment, housing, food, and water. Access to justice, including collective redress, is increasingly urgent in addressing AI’s harms. The need to hold powerful actors accountable has never been more pressing. Strategic litigation remains a key tool for defending human rights and resisting authoritarianism.

We expect to be able to accommodate, develop, and coordinate litigation efforts under this AI Hub, addressing any, but not limited to the following issues:

• Environmental and rights-based litigation against data centres;
• Anti-discrimination litigation against the use of discriminatory AI systems;
• Cases against harmful content moderation and censorship practices;
• Environmental impact disclosure and greenwashing litigation;
• Accountability of cloud and platform service providers;
• Labour rights across the AI and digital infrastructure supply chain;
• AI systems involved in harmful consumer practices; and
• Countering surveillance technologies being used against people on the move, journalists, activists and the general public.

The AI Hub is open to litigators, community organisers, technical experts, researchers, and other actors involved in strategic litigation efforts related to AI and Digital Infrastructure. Our primary focus is on the Council of Europe, but we are also open to participants working on these issues in Africa and Latin America.

Participation in the AI & Digital Infrastructure Hub includes, but is not limited to, the following activities:

• monthly online meetings;
• topic-specific workshops;
• strategic litigation retreats; and
• Inter-Hub Annual Meetups.

These activities shall:

• foster meaningful and long-lasting collaborations amongst participants,
• enable collective brainstorming on AI and digital infrastructure strategic litigation cases, and
• share best practices, knowledge and skills relating to strategic litigation in this area.

Deadline for AI & Digital Infrastructure Hub Signup

We invite participants interested in joining the AI Hub to apply by completing  this form by 18:00 CEST on July 31, 2025. We shall be accepting a maximum of 30 participants.