Neurotechnology, Criminal Law and Human Rights: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

What kind of human rights challenges might emerge from neurotechnology and how might these challenges play out in criminal justice? This event will address these questions.

Investment from companies such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink, Facebook and a host of others gives reason to take seriously the possibility that neurotechnologies, such as brain-computer interfaces, may soon be more widely available in society. Recently, Chile has become a world-leader in responding to possible human rights implications of more widespread use of technologies that interact with the brain, and has now changed its constitution in order to address emerging challenges.

Whether one imagines people committing crimes by way of brain-computer interface, or the employment by the state of technologies that monitor brains, or even intervene on them to reduce the risk of a person offending, it seems reasonable to expect that there will be a criminal justice dimension to neurotechnology.

But should governments monitor brains? Should they use a neurotechnological means to address crime? There are obvious human rights implications concerning such hypothetical scenarios. Given the possibility that, at some point, the uptake of neurotechnologies might start to accelerate, it seems prudent to envisage some of the issues that might emerge now, rather than waiting until technology is entrenched in a way that is undesirable.

With this in mind, scholars and policymakers from around the world are starting to consider the human rights implications of neurotechnology. While considering some general issues relating to neurotechnology and human rights, this event will also examine the technology with a somewhat more specific aim in mind and ask what human rights implications it may have for criminal justice.

The consideration of such issues requires scholars from a variety of backgrounds including science and technology, and philosophy, as well as law and we look forward to investigating the issues with the below-mentioned speakers and others.

The audience we expect is similarly diverse and we invite scholars from a variety of backgrounds, legal practitioners, scientists, technologists, policymakers, and others who wish to consider the themes that will be discussed.

The conference is free to register and takes place via Zoom.

Speakers and discussants

• Susie Alegre, Associate, Doughty Street Chambers and Visiting Fellow at University of Roehampton
• Tugba Basaran Akmazoglu, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa
• Jennifer Chandler, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa
• Lisa Claydon, The Open University Law School
• Jared Genser, Perseus Strategies and Neurorights Foundation
• Walter Glannon, Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary
• Sara Goering, Department of Philosophy, University of Washington
• Stephanie Herrmann, Perseus Strategies
• Marcello Ienca, ETH Zurich and Intelligent Systems Ethics Unit, College of Humanities, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)
• Fabrice Jotterand, Medical College of Wisconsin and Institute for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Basel
• Sjors Ligthart, Tilburg Law School, Tilburg University and Utrecht University
• Allan McCay, Sydney Law School
• Fruzsina Molnár-Gábor, Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
• Helen Paterson, Sydney Institute of Criminology and Faculty of Science, University of Sydney
• Rafael Yuste, NeuroTechnology Center, Columbia University and Neurorights Foundation

<< VIEW THE PROGRAM >> 

(PDF 249kb. Updated as at 3 December 2021)

Tuesday 14 December 2021, 8.50am-8pm AEDT (Sydney time) 

Please note that the conference start and end time caters to the time zones of our speakers in North America and Europe. The conference will be broken up into two sessions, with a gap in between.

You will receive Zoom details closer to the date of the event.

This conference is organised by Dr Allan McCay and Francis Maxwell, Sydney Law School and hosted by the Sydney Institute of Criminology at The University of Sydney Law School.

Image sourced from Canva.