Introductory description

This course is designed to examine the role that law plays in regulating technology in a global, contested, and unequal world. Technology is influencing the lives we lead, shaping work, education, leisure and resetting conventions and values that underpin our societal fabric. These changes also affect the arrangements and design of regulation to ensure that they can keep pace and remain effective with the emergence of new technology.
Technology affects different people, and contexts differently, and fundamental to the design of this course is to show how technology shapes power, between countries, people, and institutions.
Taking a global approach acknowledges that there is a plurality of legal perspectives, concerns and objectives that need to be addressed across different jurisdictions, and domains of law.
This course will examine intersecting concerns that emerge around technological developments. It will discuss regulations around artificial intelligence, data, platforms as well as offer approaches that study human rights, gender and discrimination from interdisciplinary lenses. The course is not restricted to a particular area of law, nor the study of a specific regulation, it encourages students to build a legal understanding of socio-technical issues

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

The course is organised over 10 weeks and is structured in four parts. The first part frames the role that law plays at a global level in its interactions with technology. It examines technology as an object as well as form of regulation. The second part looks at three domains where technology regulation has emerged: Data, Platforms and Artificial Intelligence. In this section, lectures will introduce different regulatory approaches across jurisdictional, and ideological lines. The third part focusses on lenses to study the intersection between law, and technology through discussions on human rights, gender, and anti-discrimination. The fourth part of the course will focus on a critical reflection where students will participate in a mock trial to examine and share what they have learnt in the course.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Understand why the law matters in studying technology through a socio-technical point of view.
• Explore models of technology regulation that are being proposed globally.
• Demonstrate knoweldge of the political economy of regulation, and its implications on people and the planet.
• Understand and showcase which policy design, and legal and regulatory practice have responded to technology facilitated change.
• Present, analyse and write on a legal issue that may have emerged in the course.

Indicative reading list

Reading lists can be found in Talis

Research element

Students will have an opportunity to produce different writing and oral outputs.

Interdisciplinary

Students will engage with reading at the intersection of law and society, law and technology and law and development.

International

The course takes an intentional approach to surface literature and cases from different parts of the world. It is global, plural and comparative in nature.

Subject specific skills

• Socio- Legal Literacy: Ability to study and analyse key concepts related to the regulation and governance of technology.
• Critical thinking: Critical capacity to interrogate and challenge technological development through an analysis of power dynamics, policy design and institutional practices.
• Epistemic reflexivity: Awareness of legal and knowledge production in different jurisdictions and the implications this has for technological and regulatory development.
• Research Skills: Produce a variety of outputs including a review essay, a research essay and an oral presentation.

Transferable skills

• Problem solving and framing: Ability to navigate different contexts and identify issues and challenges.
• Legal and ethical reasoning: Ability to formulate coherent arguments backed up with evidence and contextual legal knowledge.
• Teamwork: Ability to work across disciplines, and with different cultural barriers.
• Communication: Ability to produce written and oral outputs.
• Project management: Ability to read, review, analyse and orate in class.