Ensuring the safety of our information infrastructures is a huge challenge that involves human, legal, and technical cooperation at a global scale. The rise of new technology, especially AI, poses great challenges for the development of effective law and regulation. In this session we have a perspective from law and social science from the University of Edinburgh’s leading scholar of law and cybersecurity, Gavin Sullivan, and a visiting researcher from Toronto, Jamie Duncan.

Speaker Biographies

Dr Gavin Sullivan

Gavin Sullivan joined the University of Edinburgh in 2021. His research focuses on the politics of global security law, technology and rights using socio-legal and ethnographic methods. Gavin’s research interests include international organisations and collective security; algorithmic governance, accountability and international human rights; transnational and informal law, global pluralism and constitutionalism; counterterrorism and preemptive security. In 2020 Gavin was awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship for his socio-legal research project, Infra-Legalities: Global Security Infrastructures, Artificial Intelligence and International Law (2021 – 2028).  He leads an interdisciplinary team of scholars in international law, anthropology, socio-legal studies, computer science and security studies to examine how AI-led security, and the data infrastructures that sustain it, are reshaping global security law, rights and accountability and security decision-making. Gavin has worked widely as an expert consultant on counterterrorism issues, including for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. He is a member of the ‘Transparency’ and ‘Legal Frameworks’ working groups of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, co-covenor of the ESIL International Law and Technology Interest Group and on the Editorial Committee of the journal, Transnational Legal Theory. Gavin’s book – The Law of the List: UN Counterterrorism Sanctions and the Politics of Global Security Law(Cambridge University Press, 2020) – was awarded the 2021 International Studies Association STAIR Book Award for research bringing STS into dialogue with global politics.

Website: https://www.law.ed.ac.uk/people/dr-gavin-sullivan

Jamie Duncan

Jamie Duncan is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies. He is a fellow of Massey College and the Schwartz-Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. Jamie is an interdisciplinary social scientist studying information policy, technology governance, and security. His work has appeared in academic journals like The British Journal of Criminology and Internet Policy Review as well as popular outlets like The Globe and Mail. Jamie’s doctoral research investigates the role of technology adoption in deepening international cooperation on border security among the Five Eyes partners (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and United States). This work is supported by a Canada Graduate Scholarship in Honour of Nelson Mandela.

Website: https://www.jamieduncan.ca/