Associate Professor Maria O’Sullivan, the Theme Lead of our Protection from Technology-based Harms research stream, recently wrote a commentary on the right to political participation and protest in the Metaverse.  This comment, published in the Amsterdam Law and Technology Institute Forum, discusses a significant development in the use of the metaverse which has not yet been analysed fully in existing literature: the creation of digital nations and virtual governments.

This follows on from a presentation Maria made at the Global Conference on AI and Human Rights in Slovenia in June this year, organised by Professor Vasilka Sancin, the Director of the Institute for International Law and International Relations at the University of Ljubljana and a former member of the UN Human Rights Committee. The conference brought together experts from across the world and diverse fields to explore how the future design, development and use of artificial intelligence systems should comply with human rights.

This piece on the Metaverse forms part of a broader project being undertaken by members of the Centre for Law as Protection on the regulation of AI, encompassing the gender dimensions of AI design and implementation, human rights implications (including the right to privacy, protest and political participation) and the calibration of content moderation mechanisms.

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