Summer conferencing

Marco Almada

Marco Almada

— 8 min read
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Summer conferencing
Photo by Vicko Mozara / Unsplash

Hello, dear reader, and welcome to another issue of AI, Law, and Otter Things! It has been over a month since my last newsletter, and quite a bit has happened since then. I am finally done (for the time being) with the manuscript for my monograph on technology-neutral regulation. On slightly less important news, the European Commission issued on 3 June its Tech Sovereignty Package, which features proposals for regulations and other initiatives meant to mitigate dependence on US- and China-based providers. Also, World Otter Day 2026 was a success, with events in over 50 countries. In short, we had news in all fronts for AI, Law, and Otter Things.

In today's issue, I'd like to share a bit of what I've been up to. First, I'll share some words about my draft monograph, as well as information about panels at the ICON-S annual conference next week. After that, the usual recommendations of writings by others and opportunities that might be of interest to readers of this newsletter. And a cute otter, of course!

On Delegating the Laws of Tomorrow

Yesterday, I finally sent to Oxford University Press a full manuscript for Delegating the Laws of Tomorrow: The Hidden Costs of Technology-Neutral Regulation, a book loosely based on my PhD thesis. I say "loosely" because of some design choices made by Past Marco that, while fully justified, created a considerable amount of work. The ensuing manuscript has ten chapters, three of which have been substantially revised from my thesis. The remaining seven chapters were written from scratch, as I sought to broaden my scope (from AI regulation to technology regulation more broadly) and further develop the methodology I introduced in the thesis. Doing so took a lot of work, and even more procrastination but I believe the result will be of interest to anyone working on the interfaces between technology and the law.

What is that book about? In short, it deals with the question concerning technology in regulation: how should we deal with that, after all? A popular response to that question is the idea of "technology-neutral regulation", according to which policymakers should be indifferent about the technical details of the technologies they regulate. Although there are strong critiques of the idea that regulation should always be technology-neutral (see, e.g., Paul Ohm, Michael Birnhack, and Constanța Roșca), it is largely seen as a positive thing in policy. As such, some form of technology neutrality can be seen as the default instance in the WTO trade regime, the EU's Better Regulation Toolbox, and many other sources worldwide.

The idea of technology-neutral regulation introduced above might sound pretty straightforward; intuitive, even. Just like Augustine's definition of time, however, that apparent clarity vanishes once we look more closely. There are a lot of ways to understand "neutrality" and "technology" (and "regulation", for that matter), which do not always fit in nicely with one another. For example, Recital 15 of the GDPR defines technology neutrality as a form of ensuring that regulated actors cannot avoid their obligations by a clever choice of technical means, while the European Electronic Communications Code frames technology neutrality as a matter of not using technical considerations as a reason to pick winners and losers in technological markets. One potential solution to this polysemy, adopted (among others) by Maria Grazia Porcedda, is to try and live with it, acknowledging that the term can mean different things according to the policy context. I propose an alternative reading.

At the heart of my proposal lies the idea of delegation. As I argue in the book, technology-neutral regulation can take many forms, from principle-based regulation to the legal bindingness of technical standards elaborated by market entities. All of those forms, however, share one aspect: they always allow the policymaker to turn questions about technologies into somebody else's problem. The identity of that somebody else might vary. In regulation by design, the regulated actors are the ones who are expected to fill in the gaps, while the EU AI Act has plenty of provisions in which technical detail must be supplied by follow-up instruments such as implementing acts adopted by the European Commission or harmonized technical standards produced by European Standardization Organizations. In my book, I argue that, if we view technology-neutral regulation as a form of delegation, we can use that as a starting point for analysing the practices that bring technology regulation to life (or fail to do so).

My book is divided into three parts, plus a concluding chapter:

  • In the first three parts, I make the case that viewing technology-neutral regulation as a form of delegation is compatible both with how the term is used in policy discourse and in technology regulation scholarship.
  • The second part offers questions that we can use to map the impact of delegation throughout as we design, implement, and evaluate regulation (or critique those acts).
  • Finally, the third part applies those tools to the study of three issues in EU digital regulation: the recent developments in cybersecurity law; the growth of digital sovereignty as a European ambition; and the determination of which technical measures meet legal standards for 'meaningful information' about automated decisions.

These cases are meant as an illustration of the potential of the method, while offering a way to make sense of the developments under analysis and identify parallels between them.

As for the next steps, the manuscript will now undergo external review. After that, the publisher will decide the next steps (which are likely to involve some corrections and adjustments, as well as indexing). The book should not come out before the end of the year, but I will keep you posted as more news appear. In the meantime, if you want to know more, this recording from a lecture I gave at ALTI last week might be of interest, as well as my participation in Alba Ribera's The Binary Agora. And, of course, please don't hesitate to reach out!

Next week, at ICON-S 2026

Over the last few weeks, I had very little time to come up with something interesting to say in this newsletter. Between the monograph discussed above, wrapping up my activities in Luxembourg, and participating in a few events, I could not write anything beyond yet another filler issue. Now, instead, I am happy to plug in some of the events in which I will be involved as part of the big ICON-S conference that will take place in Dublin from 29 June to 1 July.

Security in the Digital Age

First of all, I am happy to share that, with some colleagues, I am trying to set up an ICON-S Interest Group on Security in the Digital Age. The inaugural meeting of the Interest Group will take place on Tuesday (30 June) at 14:30, at Sutherland · L247. Sarah Tas and I will facilitate this meeting, to which we welcome anybody interested in topics related to public law, security (broadly conceived), and digitalization. We want to explore potential avenues for collaboration and see how to consolidate the interest group.

In addition to the group meeting, we have organized two panels to showcase work within its scope.

  • On Monday (29 June), at 9:45, Niovi Vavoula will chair the panel "National and European Security in the Digital Age I: New vistas of security".
    • This panel will feature talks by Pier Giorgio Chiara, Ph.D., Plixavra Vogiatzoglou, and myself
    • These talks cover different facets of law and policy that are touched by security claims in the digital age
    • It will take place at Sutherland · L249.
  • On Tuesday (30 June), at 11:30, I will chair the panel "National and European Security in the Digital Age II: Changing security practices".
    • This panel will feature talks by Deirdre Curtin, Gavin Robinson, and Sarah Tas
    • They will present works on how digitalization affects established security practices
    • The panel will take place at O'Connor · L2.17, with comments by Niovi Vavoula.

Other panels

In addition to the interest group, I will have the pleasure of contributing to two other panels:

  • On Tuesday (30 June), I will speak at the panel "Standardising fundamental rights: a quest for power and compliance" (Panel 8.20, at 16:15), chaired by Irene Kamara.
  • On Wednesday (1 July), I will discuss Elaine Fahey's book "Big Tech and EU law: Transatlantic lawyering, lobbying, litigating" (Panel 12.18, at 14:00)

Recommendations

Recently, I read qntm's There Is No Antimemetics Division. It is not my usual kind of reading (I like science fiction, but have no interest whatsoever for horror), but it was an engrossing read. On a very different vibe, but still within the large tent of sci-fi, Adrian Tchaikovsky's Final Architecture trilogy is very interesting.

As for professional reading, here are a few recommendations:

Opportunities

Disclaimer: as usual, I am gathering these links purely for convenience and because I think they might be of interest to readers of this newsletter. Unless I explicitly say otherwise, I am not involved with any of the selection processes indicated below.

Calls for papers

The workshop The Governor’s Dilemma – Law, Courts, and Rules will take place on 12 and 13 November 2026, at Berlin's Hertie School. Abstracts are due by 1 August.

On 10–11 May 2027, the University of Warsaw and the Polish Academy of Sciences, will host the conference Enforcing the Rules of the Game: Competition, Regulation, and the Evolving Architecture of EU Law Enforcement. Abstracts are due by 15 October.

Job openings

Cristiana Santos at Utrecht University is hiring a PhD researcher in law for her NWO Vidi project "With greater power must come great responsibility". Applications are due by 16 July.

Liane Colonna at Stockholm University is hiring a post-doc in Law and Information Technology. Applications are due by 3 August.

Thibault Schrepel at VU Amsterdam is hiring three PhD researchers in Competition Law and AI as part of his ATLANTIS project, funded by an ERC Consolidator grant. Applications are due by 15 September.

Copenhagen Business School is looking for an Assistant Professor in IT law and Internet law. Applications are due by 31 August.

The IE School of Politics, Economics & Global Affairs (Madrid) is recruiting three tenure-track Assistant Professors, one each in Comparative Politics, International Relations, and Political Economy. Applications are due by 5 October.

And now, the otter

a close up of a small animal in a body of water
Photo by Jonny Gios / Unsplash

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Thanks for your attention! Do not hesitate to hit “reply” to this email or contact me elsewhere to discuss some topic I raise in the newsletter. Likewise, let me know if there is a job opening, event, or publication that might be of interest to me or to the readers of this newsletter. Hope to see you next time!

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