IRVINE, Calif. (Sept. 20, 2024) — On Sept. 24, Professor David Kaye, director of the International Justice Clinic at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, will testify before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy in a hearing titled “Cyberspace Under Threat in the Era of Rising Authoritarianism and Global Competition.” The hearing will focus on the tools that repressive governments around the world are using to undermine democracy and human rights.
Prof. Kaye will be joined by fellow experts Laura Cunningham, president of the Open Technology Fund, and Jamil N. Jaffer, founder and executive director of the National Security Institute.
“People around the world depend upon digital technologies to enjoy fundamental human rights, such as the ability to engage in democratic debate and to access information and ideas of all kinds,” Professor Kaye said. “Authoritarian governments find that threatening and often use tools to target human rights activists, journalists, protesters and opposition political figures. I look forward to talking with members of the Subcommittee about the nature of those threats and the steps the United States and other governments can take to address them.”
The hearing will take place on Tuesday, September 24, at 10 a.m. ET. A live-stream of the hearing will be available here: https://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/cyberspace-under-threat-in-the-era-of-rising-authoritarianism-and-global-competition.
People around the world depend upon digital technologies to enjoy fundamental human rights, such as the ability to engage in democratic debate and to access information and ideas of all kinds. Authoritarian governments find that threatening and often use tools to target human rights activists, journalists, protesters and opposition political figures. I look forward to talking with members of the Subcommittee about the nature of those threats and the steps the United States and other governments can take to address them.
Professor David kaye
In addition to directing the International Justice Clinic, Prof. Kaye teaches human rights and public international law courses at UC Irvine Law. He served as a Fulbright Scholar in Sweden for the 2023-2024 academic year, serving as a Distinguished Scholar in Public International Law at Lund University’s School of Law and its Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, one of the most prominent centers for the study and teaching of human rights law in Europe. From 2014 to 2020, he served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
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