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1. The law in computation: What machine learning, artificial intelligence, and big data mean for law and society scholarship

   https://doi.org/10.1111/lapo.12164  

   DoCarmo, Tania; Rea, Stephen; Conaway, Evan; Emery, John; Raval, Noopur (April 2021, Law & Policy)

   Abstract Computational systems, including machine learning, artificial intelligence, and big data analytics, are not only inescapable parts of social life but are also reshaping the contours of law and legal practice. We propose turning more law and social science (LSS) attention to new technological developments through the study of “law in computation,” that is, computational systems' integration with regulatory and administrative procedures, the sociotechnical infrastructures that support them, and their impact on how individuals and populations are interpellated through the law. We present a range of cases in three areas of inquiry ‐ algorithmic governance, jurisdiction and agency ‐ on issues such as immigration enforcement, data sovereignty, algorithmic warfare, biometric identity regimes, and gig economies, for which examining law in computation illuminates how new technological systems' integration with legal processes pushes the distinction between “law on the books” and “law in action” into new domains.We then propose future directions and methods for research. As computational systems become ever more sophisticated, understanding the law in computation is critical not only for LSS scholarship, but also for everyday civics. 

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2. The interaction of ice and law in Arctic marine accessibility

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2202720119  

   Lynch, Amanda H.; Norchi, Charles H.; Li, Xueke (June 2022, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Sea ice levies an impost on maritime navigability in the Arctic, but ice cover diminution due to anthropogenic climate change is generating expectations for improved accessibility in coming decades. Projections of sea ice cover retreating preferentially from the eastern Arctic suggest key provisions of international law of the sea will require revision. Specifically, protections against marine pollution in ice-covered seas enshrined in Article 234 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea have been used in recent decades to extend jurisdictional competence over the Northern Sea Route only loosely associated with environmental outcomes. Projections show that plausible open water routes through international waters may be accessible by midcentury under all but the most aggressive of emissions control scenarios. While inter- and intraannual variability places the economic viability of these routes in question for some time, the inevitability of a seasonally ice-free Arctic will be attended by a reduction of regulatory friction and a recalibration of associated legal frameworks. 

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3. Untapped capacity for resilience in environmental law

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1906247116  

   Garmestani, Ahjond; Ruhl, J. B.; Chaffin, Brian C.; Craig, Robin K.; van Rijswick, Helena F.; Angeler, David G.; Folke, Carl; Gunderson, Lance; Twidwell, Dirac; Allen, Craig R. (October 2019, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Over the past several decades, environmental governance has made substantial progress in addressing environmental change, but emerging environmental problems require new innovations in law, policy, and governance. While expansive legal reform is unlikely to occur soon, there is untapped potential in existing laws to address environmental change, both by leveraging adaptive and transformative capacities within the law itself to enhance social-ecological resilience and by using those laws to allow social-ecological systems to adapt and transform. Legal and policy research to date has largely overlooked this potential, even though it offers a more expedient approach to addressing environmental change than waiting for full-scale environmental law reform. We highlight examples from the United States and the European Union of untapped capacity in existing laws for fostering resilience in social-ecological systems. We show that governments and other governance agents can make substantial advances in addressing environmental change in the short term—without major legal reform—by exploiting those untapped capacities, and we offer principles and strategies to guide such initiatives. 

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4. A global digital identity for all: the next evolution

   Dr Clare Sullivan and Scott Tyson (October 2023, Policy Design and Practice)

   Judith Clifton, Marcos Fernandez-Gutierrez (Ed.)

   This paper chronicles the emergence of digital identity as a legal concept, how digital identity has grown in importance at the national level over the past decades and is now poised to become even more important internationally. This work builds on existing scholarship, to consider the next evolution of digital identity from what is now essentially a national concept into a global, legal concept. The examination looks to the likely emergence of a global digital identity for individuals in the near future and asks how that could be achieved. The authors examine the use of blockchain technology as a possible foundation of a global digital identity, along with the necessary development of existing international law on individual rights to support a global digital identity for all. Blockchain is viewed as relatively more secure and it enables individuals to have more control over how their identity information is managed and used. Blockchain’s traceability pro vides advantages for government and the private sector in man aging and verifying identity. It aids the integrity of identity information and related transactions. However, it is important to note that, while blockchain has advantages, its relative immutability can lead to the creation and use of false digital identities that cannot be easily detected or corrected. As this paper discusses, this aspect can undermine the integrity and reliability of digital identity nationally and internationally. Given that blockchain tech nology is fallible, the authors argue that international law has a vital role now and in the future in recognizing the right to digital identity and establishing norms of conduct. 

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5. Privacy Nicks: How the Law Normalizes Surveillance

   Hartzog, Woodrow; Selinger, Evan; Gunawan, Johanna (September 2024, Washington University Law Review)

   Privacy law is failing to protect individuals from being watched and exposed, despite stronger surveillance and data protection rules. The problem is that our rules look to social norms to set thresholds for privacy violations, but people can get used to being observed. In this Article, we argue that by ignoring de minimis privacy encroachments, the law is complicit in normalizing surveillance. Privacy law helps acclimate people to being watched by ignoring smaller, more frequent, and more mundane privacy diminutions. We call these reductions “privacy nicks,” like the proverbial “thousand cuts” that lead to death. Privacy nicks come from the proliferation of cameras and biometric sensors on doorbells, glasses, and watches, and the drift of surveillance and data analytics into new areas of our lives like travel, exercise, and social gatherings. Under our theory of privacy nicks as the Achilles heel of surveillance law, invasive practices become routine through repeated exposures that acclimate us to being vulnerable and watched in increasingly intimate ways. With acclimation comes resignation, and this shift in attitude biases how citizens and lawmakers view reasonable measures and fair tradeoffs. Because the law looks to norms and people’s expectations to set thresholds for what counts as a privacy violation, the normalization of these nicks results in a constant renegotiation of privacy standards to society’s disadvantage. When this happens, the legal and social threshold for rejecting invasive new practices keeps getting redrawn, excusing ever more aggressive intrusions. In effect, the test of what privacy law allows is whatever people will tolerate. There is no rule to stop us from tolerating everything. This Article provides a new theory and terminology to understand where privacy law falls short and suggests a way to escape the current surveillance spiral. 

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