Metaphors and cyberspace - Julia Slupska

03/17/21 • 42 min

In this episode, Dr Simon McKenzie talks with Julia Sluspka about how the metaphors we use to understand cyberspace impact on how we imagine it should be regulated. They discuss the ways in which the conceptualisation of cyberspace is contested. Is it like spatial territory? Are states engaged in cyber war? Or is it like an ecosystem, or infrastructure? The metaphor we adopt frames the problems we see and the solutions we arrive at.

Julia Slupska is a doctoral student at the Centre for Doctoral Training in Cybersecurity and the Oxford Internet Institute. Her research focuses on technologically-mediated abuse like image-based sexual abuse ('revenge porn') and stalking, as well as emotion, care and metaphors in cybersecurity.

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The ICRC's perspective on new technology and international humanitarian law - Cordula Droege

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In this episode, Dr Eve Massingham talks with Dr Cordula Droege about some of the challenges new technologies pose to international humanitarian law. They discuss nuclear weapons, autonomous weapons systems, cyber operations, and the importance of carrying out weapon reviews. They also consider some of the uses of technology for humanitarian purposes, including the rewards and risks of using biometric data.
Dr Cordula Droege is the chief legal officer and head of the legal division of the ICRC, where she leads the ICRC’s efforts to uphold, implement and develop international humanitarian law. She joined the ICRC in 2005 and has held a number of positions in the field and at headquarter, including as head of the legal advisers to operations, and most recently as chief of staff to the President of the ICRC. She has some twenty years of experience in the field of international law, and in her earlier career worked for the International Commission of Jurists, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Max Planck Institute for International Law. She holds a law degree and a PhD from the University of Heidelberg and an LL.M from the London School of Economics.

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The Banning of Hostile Environmental Modification in the ENMOD Convention - Emily Crawford

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In this episode, Dr Simon McKenzie talks with Associate Professor Emily Crawford about the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques – known as the ENMOD Convention. This Convention – adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1976 and ratified by 78 States – prohibits weaponising the natural environment against other State parties.
However, the technology it regulates – the artificial creation of natural phenomena like earthquakes, cyclones, or tsunamis for hostile purposes – has never been developed or used. This technology is like something out of science fiction. This episode examines how this striking Convention came to be, what the drafters thought it might cover, and why they thought it was a useful new treaty for the law of war.
Emily Crawford is an Associate Professor at the University of Sydney Law School, where she teaches and researches in international law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. She has published widely in the field of international humanitarian law, including two monographs (The Treatment of Combatants and Insurgents under the Law of Armed Conflict (OUP 2010) and Identifying the Enemy: Civilian Participation in Hostilities (OUP 2015)) and a textbook (International Humanitarian Law (with Alison Pert, 2nd edition, CUP 2020)), and is currently working on her third monograph, on the impact of non-binding instruments in international humanitarian law. She is an associate of the Sydney Centre for International Law at the University of Sydney, and a co-editor of the Journal of International Humanitarian Studies.