Constitutionalising Digital Rights: Universal Basic Income as Progressive Social Protection in AI-Drive Economies

Despite extensive scholarship on Universal Basic Income (UBI), existing literature has largely neglected its constitutional justiciability as a socio-economic right in AI-driven economies, particularly within Global South jurisdictions. This gap is increasingly significant as artificial intelligence accelerates labour displacement in contexts characterised by high informality, weak social protection systems, and persistent digital exclusion. This article examines whether existing constitutional guarantees of dignity, the right to life, and social security can be interpretively expanded to recognise and enforce UBI as a digital socio-economic right without requiring formal constitutional amendment. Employing a doctrinal and comparative constitutional methodology, the study analyses transformative socio-economic rights jurisprudence from selected Global South jurisdictions, complemented by a socio-legal synthesis of empirical evidence from long-term UBI pilot programmes. Based on this analysis, the article develops the Progressive Realisation Test for Digital-Era Social Protection (PRT-DSP), a three-part justiciability framework consisting of a constitutional hook grounded in dignity and livelihood protections, a minimum core standard encompassing subsistence and meaningful digital participation, and a progressive realisation requirement constrained by the principle of non-retrogression. The findings demonstrate that existing socio-economic rights frameworks can accommodate UBI through purposive interpretation, and that courts possess legitimate authority to mandate framework legislation and supervisory remedies where technological displacement undermines access to livelihood. While digital taxation is not universally required, the study argues that the progressive realisation doctrine conditionally obliges states to identify rights-compatible revenue sources as AI-driven productivity increases. The article concludes by proposing a hybrid enforcement pathway that combines judicial recognition of minimum-core entitlements with legislative operationalisation, thereby positioning UBI as a constitutionally viable mechanism for social protection in AI-driven economies in the Global South.