Seminar on the topic ‘Liberty to Spy? Peacetime Espionage and International Law’
Dr. Asaf Lubin is an Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and a Visiting Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. Prior to taking these positions Dr. Lubin completed a joint LL.B./B.A. degree in Law and International Relations at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and an LL.M. and J.S.D. degrees at Yale Law School. Dr. Lubin has recently accepted a position as an Associate Professor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law to begin this fall where he will be teaching courses in public international law and cybersecurity law. Dr. Lubin’s presentation on the international law of espionage is based on his doctoral dissertation at Yale Law School further rooted in his experience both as a former intelligence analyst (Sergeant Major (Res.)) with Israeli Intelligence and as the 2017-2018 Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellow at Privacy International, a London-based NGO that fights to curtail illegal surveillance.
The notion that international law is moot as to the question of if, when, and how intelligence is to be collected, analyzed, and promulgated, has been repeated so many times that it has become the prevailing orthodoxy. Many international legal thinkers today reject the idea that there are any customary rules or general principles of law that might govern the shadowy practice of spooks and saboteurs. In this presentation Dr. Lubin will propose a new and innovative legal framework for controlling the normative relationship between spy and spied, relying on a body of moral philosophy and intelligence ethics literature so far ignored by legal scholars. This framework diagnoses the legality of covert interstate peacetime intelligence operations at three distinct temporal stages: before (jus ad explorationem), during (jus in exploratione), and after (jus post explorationem) each operation. From non-official covers (NOCs) tactics in clandestine human intelligence gathering to cyber intrusions and mass digital interceptions, the proposed framework applies to all aspects of a State’s intelligence collection, analysis, and promulgation efforts.
This presentation is part of a broader book project Dr. Lubin is currently working on titled: “The International Law of Intelligence: The World of Spycraft and the Law of Nations.” Dr. Lubin recently published “The Liberty to Spy” with the Harvard International Law Journal which explores some themes covered in the full manuscript. The paper is accessible at this link: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3327505.
Conference ID: 896 8362 0174
Password: 456076
Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89683620174?pwd=REREcmFxVGYrOXhnV0NKRmJFNUZNUT09