Technology

[Dapo Akande, Antonio Coco, Talita Dias, Duncan B. Hollis, James O’Brien and Tsvetelina van Benthem.] In the past few months, nothing has reminded everyone of the etymology of the expression ‘computer virus’ like ransomware. This form of malicious code is delivered through a vulnerability in the victim’s system, such as a phishing email or password spraying, infiltrating and potentially crippling it...

Events Gender, Women, and Leadership at the International Criminal Court:  Minerva Law is pleased to announce an event on "Gender, Women, and Leadership at the International Criminal Law" with Judge Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi on the 8th of October 2021. This talk will focus on gender, women and leadership at the International Criminal Court. As President of the ICC, Dr Fernández de Gurmendi...

[Alessandro Marinaro is an incoming second-year Master candidate in International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, in Geneva, currently working as a research and evaluation intern at the Joint Inspection Unit of the United Nations System.] Introduction The range of unique regulatory challenges arising from the digitalisation of the economy and the presence of multinational tech giants needs to be addressed with global normative solutions....

[Dr. Natalie Alkiviadou is a Senior Research Fellow at Justitia (Denmark) working on the Future of Free Speech Project. She is co-author to some of the Justitia reports discussed in this piece.] Four point two billion people are active social media users. This has given voice to previously marginalized groups. At the same time, however, extremism, hatred and abuse have become part and parcel of this reality. This...

[Eian Katz is a Legal and Policy Analyst at Canmore Company. He previously served as Counsel at Public International Law and Policy Group.] Earlier this month, the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC) released a statement on “The Regulation of Information Operations and Activities,” marking an important step in the global effort to reckon with the implications for international law of disruptive forms of online...

[Cecilia Pechmeze is a public international law practitioner, and the founder of Pechmeze Law. She tweets @ceciliapechmeze.] After a number of failures, Europe has been working on its own version of data infrastructure, GAIA-X, in an attempt to gain its independence from foreign Cloud Service Providers (CSPs). The project is still at its designing phase, a phase some argue it might never complete. Regardless...

[Valerie Oosterveld is a Professor at the University of Western Ontario (Western University) Faculty of Law in Canada and a faculty member with her university’s Institute for Earth and Space Exploration, also known as Western Space. Anne Campbell is a recent graduate of Western University and a current Western Space summer intern.] Plans for the extraction of water and minerals in outer space – particularly...

In my previous posts on the crime of ecocide -- Post 1, Post 2 -- I argued the theoretical/normative case against the IEP's decision to subject lawful acts to anthropocentric cost-benefit analysis via the "wantonness" requirement. In this post, I want to bracket the issue of whether the definition of ecocide should distinguish between lawful and unlawful acts and question...

[Massimo Frigo is a Senior Legal Adviser of the International Commission of Jurist’s Europe and Central Asia Programme.] On 25 May 2021, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights issued a landmark ruling on the compatibility of systems of mass surveillance with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the essential elements of which were first brought to public light...

[Dapo Akande, Antonio Coco, Talita Dias, Duncan B. Hollis, James O’Brien and Tsvetelina van Benthem] The Internet has allowed the dissemination of content across the globe in a matter of seconds. Recommendation algorithms, found in social media platforms and search engines, have also dangerously amplified the reach of false, misleading, and violent content (see here, here, and here). Because they are...

Call for Papers Two-day international conference on secondary sanctions: On Thursday 2 and Friday 3 December 2021, the Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute (GRILI) and the Utrecht Centre for Regulation and Enforcement in Europe (RENFORCE) will host a two-day international conference on secondary sanctions. The conference seeks to explore both the international legal framework governing such sanctions and the potential remedies to challenge them, as well as...

[Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University School of Law and Associate Research Fellow at the International Center for Counter-Terrorism--the Hague. Nilza Amaral is a Project Manager with the International Security Programme at Chatham House with expertise in drone technology and the conduct of war. Part I of the post can be found here.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhslESKNes4&t=2s Explainer: European Use of Military...