Invisible Threats: Addressing the Impact of New Technologies in Human Rights Practice

November 13, 2019 • 12:30 PM • Law School 4047

Please join us for a discussion by Molly Land, Professor of Law & Human Rights at UConn Law School. New technologies have been heralded as vehicles for freedom, allowing activists to organize and document human rights violations. These benefits have been more limited than hoped, and have created new human rights challenges as governments and private companies exploit technology to pursue their own interests. Using the example of online harassment of human rights activists in Guatemala, Prof. Land will discuss the opportunities and costs of new technologies for human rights advocacy. The event is part of the Human Rights in Practice series, organized by the Duke Law International Human Rights Clinic and the Center for International and Comparative Law. Co-sponsored by Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke Human Rights Center at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Human Rights Law Society, and International Law Society. Lunch provided. For more information, contact Balfour Smith at bsmith@law.duke.edu.

Molly Land

International law and human rights scholar Molly Land joined the UConn Law faculty in 2013 and became Associate Director of the University’s Human Rights Institute in 2015. Drawing on her human rights expertise and background as an IP and cyberlaw litigator, Professor Land’s scholarship focuses on the intersection of human rights, science, technology, and innovation. Her most recent book, “New Technologies for Human Rights Law and Practice” (CUP 2018, ed. with Jay Aronson), provides an essential roadmap for understanding the relationship between technology and human rights law and practice. Professor Land’s current research is focused on developing an interdisciplinary framework based on human rights law for responding to harmful online speech in ways that balance protection against the harms of speech with appropriate safeguards for freedom of expression and privacy.

Professor Land’s articles have been published in the Yale, Harvard, and Michigan journals of international law, among other places, and she speaks and lectures widely on the relationship between technology and human rights. She has also authored several human rights reports, including a report for the World Bank on the role of new technologies in promoting human rights. Prior to joining the UConn faculty, Professor Land was an associate professor of law at New York Law School. A former Fulbright Scholar at the University of Bonn, Professor Land earned her JD at Yale Law School.

Professor Land serves on the Board of Directors of the Global Network Initiative and is a member of the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Prior to beginning her career in the academy, Professor Land was an associate at Faegre & Benson LLP in Minneapolis, where she represented clients in intellectual property and domain name disputes, and a fellow at Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights. She clerked for the Honorable Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.