Law and Practice of the United Nations (3rd edition)
A new edition of Law and Practice of the United Nations for a new and troubling age. When I first spoke with the late, great Thomas M. Franck about turning his famous course on the constitutional law of the UN into a textbook, he said he was wary because he regarded such books as boomerangs: […] more…
Misinformation, Disinformation, and the Crisis of Trust in Public Institutions
[United Nations University] Misinformation and disinformation are not simply problems of false content or content moderation. They are multilevel governance failure. Data practices and platform architectures shape how manipulation spreads. Governments regulate, sometimes crudely. Researchers often lack the access needed to understand systemic risks. And the consequences are felt across climate action, public health, elections, […] more…
AI Companions Are Coming — Privacy Rules Are Not Ready
[Straits Times] AI companions need more than rules about data protection. They need boundaries. In Magnifica Humanitas, his first encyclical, Pope Leo XIV frames artificial intelligence as more than a technological challenge: AI calls into question the value and worth of the human person. The parallel with Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 response to […] more…
Building AI the World Can Actually Trust
At the recent ATxSummit here in Singapore, I had the pleasure of interviewing Professor Yoshua Bengio — Turing Award-winning scientist and the first living scholar to pass one million Google Scholar citations. (I gather this tally is beaten only by Michel Foucault, but what has he written lately?) As AI systems become more capable, autonomous, […] more…
Should We Take Trump’s Board of Peace Literally — or Seriously?
[Straits Times] When the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2803 in late 2025, it welcomed the proposed Board of Peace as a transitional mechanism to help implement a plan to end the horrific Gaza conflict. At the time, it appeared to be another pragmatic, time-limited device in the long tradition of ad hoc arrangements endorsed […] more…
Silicon Sovereigns: Artificial Intelligence, International Law, and the Tech-Industrial Complex
[AJIL] Artificial intelligence is reshaping science, society, and power. Yet many debates over its likely impact remain fixated on extremes: utopian visions of universal benefit and dystopian fears of existential doom, or an arms race between the U.S. and China, or the Global North and Global South. What’s missing is a serious conversation about distribution […] more…
Truth Decay
[Straits Times] Though Donald Trump would like credit for coining the term, “fake news” was a headline in the New York Times more than a century ago. The history of propaganda is far older. An early example was Egypt’s Rameses the Great, who decorated temples with monuments to his tremendous victory in the 13th century […] more…
The Evolution of AI Governance
[IEEE Computer] Many companies and a growing number of governments now have guides, frameworks, or principles claiming to govern their use of AI. Seven years ago, virtually none did. This article presents original research on documents produced by 193 countries and the top 100 companies by market capitalization. A key shift occurred in 2016 when […] more…
The Tragedy of AI Governance
[Just Security] This should be the golden age of AI governance. But words and actions are running in opposite directions. Beginning around 2016, a proliferation of guides, frameworks, and principles sought to articulate ground rules for AI. The trend began in western technology companies, but quickly spread across sectors and around the world. States soon got in on the […] more…
All Rise for the Honourable Robot Judge? Using Artificial Intelligence to Regulate AI
[Technology & Regulation] There is a rich literature on the challenges that AI poses to the legal order. But to what extent might such systems also offer part of the solution? China, which has among the least developed rules to regulate conduct by AI systems, is at the forefront of using that same technology in […] more…
We, the Robots? Regulating Artificial Intelligence and the Limits of the Law
Should we regulate artificial intelligence? Can we? From self-driving cars and high-speed trading to algorithmic decision-making, the way we live, work, and play is increasingly dependent on AI systems that operate with diminishing human intervention. These fast, autonomous, and opaque machines offer great benefits — and pose significant risks. This book examines how our laws […] more…
Facing Up to Facial Surveillance
[Straits Times] The benefits of facial recognition technology are that it offers a quick, non-invasive means of identifying people. Those are also its dangers. Last month it was reported that facial recognition will be used to take attendance in Singapore’s Parliament and check into certain hotels. The latest phones already unlock with Face ID and many […] more…
Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Autonomy
[Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies] Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are routinely said to operate autonomously, exposing gaps in regulatory regimes that assume the centrality of human actors. Yet surprisingly little attention is given to precisely what is meant by “autonomy” and its relationship to those gaps. Driverless vehicles and autonomous weapon systems are the […] more…
Monitoring the Surveillance State
[Straits Times] Should we rein in the powers of the state by restricting its surveillance powers, or do some of our own monitoring by expanding those powers still further? Earlier this year, it was announced that officers from Singapore’s Bukit Merah West Neighbourhood Police Centre (NPC) would begin trials of body-worn cameras. The […] more…
US Intelligence, Inc.
[Project Syndicate] Among the stories and rumors prompted by Edward J. Snowden’s leaking of classified material – whistleblowing or treason, depending on where you stand – the revelations that may actually lead to a policy change concern the extent to which private companies now carry out intelligence collection and analysis in the United States. Around a […] more…
Getting Used to a Surveillance Society
Outrage at the United States National Security Agency’s collection of data misses the point: The focus should be on how the data is being used. HOW should we balance liberty and security? The answer is simple: We shouldn’t. The metaphor of a “balance” between liberty and security offers an attractive way to view the […] more…
Who Killed Privacy?
[Straits Times] It is more than a decade since the former CEO of Sun Microsystems infamously declared that privacy was dead, urging the reporters who had asked him about the subject to “get over it”. That was before the launch of Facebook, Google’s Street View, the iPhone, and a proliferation of other tools that many […] more…
One Nation Under Surveillance
[OUP] What limits, if any, should be placed on a government’s efforts to spy on its citizens in the name of national security? Spying on foreigners has long been regarded as an unseemly but necessary enterprise. Spying on one’s own citizens in a democracy, by contrast, has historically been subject to various forms of legal […] more…
A Little Less Privacy, a Bit More Security
The European Union has announced that it will overhaul its data protection rules in 2011. Later this month, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Commerce Department will release their own reports on online privacy. Meanwhile, as part of the much-hyped efforts to prepare for “cyberwar,” the U.S. National Security Agency is strengthening ties with organizations […] more…
