Visiting Professor in Law and Technology

Tel
Fax
Office
(852) 3943 1808
(852) 2994 2505
Room 529
Faculty of Law
5/F, Lee Shau Kee Building
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Sha Tin, NT, Hong Kong SAR
Uta Kohl is Professor of Law and Technology at the University of Southampton with research interests primarily in governance questions of the internet – its territoriality, dominant corporate actors, personal data building blocks, its communications (e.g. hate speech or disinformation) and its technologies (i.e. algorithms and AI).
Uta Kohl is the author of the monograph Jurisdiction and the Internet (CUP, 2007, ppb 2010) and the textbook Information Technology Law (5th ed, 2016, Routledge, with D. Rowland, A. Charlesworth). In 2013, Google Inc invited her to do further research on internet jurisdiction, which led to the symposium National Law versus the Global Internet – Re-Negotiating Westphalia? (2014) and the edited collection The Net and the Nation State (CUP, 2017). More recently, she has branched out into other online governance questions, like predictive analytics (see edited collection Data-Driven Personalisation in Markets, Politics and Law, CUP, 2021, with J. Eisler) and comparative privacy and hate speech regulation (see articles below and the funded Leverhulme project ‘Modern Technologies, Privacy Law and the Dead’). She also acted as the Human Rights Trustee on the Board of Trustees of the Internet Watch Foundation (2014-2020).
Uta Kohl has held various visiting positions, most recently as a visiting scholar at MIT (2023) in a collaborative project with Prof Nazli Choucri on corporate sovereignty on the internet.
EDUCATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
- BA/LLB (First Class) (University of Tasmania)
- Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice (ANU)
- Barrister and Solicitor (Australian High Court and ACT Supreme Court)
- PhD (University of Canberra)
RESEARCH INTERESTS
- Platform economy
- Privacy and data protection
- Internet jurisdiction (public and private international law)
- Online harm
- Corporate governance
APPOINTMENTS
- Professor of Law, University of Southampton (2018 – present)
- Visiting Scholar, MIT (2023)
- Visiting Professor, Bocconi University, Milan (2017, 2018, 2019)
- Visiting Professor, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (2019)
- Visiting Professor, Pazmany Peter Catholic University, Budapest (2018)
- Associate Professor, Aberystwyth Law School (2012-2018)
- Assistant Professor, Department of Law, Aberystwyth University (2000-2012)
- Research Fellow (PhD), University of Canberra (1998 – 2000)
- Legal Cadet, AG’s Department, Canberra, Australia (1997)
FUNDED PROJECTS
- Co-I Leverhulme Trust Grant ‘Emerging Technologies, Personality Laws and the Dead’ with Prof R. Nwabueze (PI), Dr E. Harbinja, Prof L. Edwards (2020-2024)
- Co-I ‘Citizen trust in autonomous vehicles: the interactive role of regulatory focus on alleviating scepticism’ with Paurav Shukla (PI), Yaniv Hanoch, Nicholas Kelley (2022)
- PI Google-funded project on ‘Jurisdiction and the Internet’ (2014)
- PI AHRC Extended Research Leave: ‘Jurisdiction’ book (2006)
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Books
- DATA-DRIVEN PERSONALISATION IN MARKETS, POLITICS AND LAW (Cambridge University Press, 2021, edited with J. Eisler) https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108891325
- THE NET AND THE NATION STATE – MULTIDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON INTERNET GOVERNANCE (edited collection, Cambridge University Press, 2017) https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316534168.002
- INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LAW (5th ed, Routledge, 2016) (textbook with D. Rowland, A. Charlesworth) https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203798522
- INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LAW (4th ed, Routledge, 2011) (textbook with D. Rowland ,A. Charlesworth)
- HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE MARKET PLACE (Ashgate, 2008) (monograph with Harding, N. Salmon) https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315587530
- JURISDICTION AND THE INTERNET – REGULATORY COMPETENCE OVER ONLINE ACTIVITY (Cambridge University Press, 2007, ppb 2010)
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511495311
Journal Papers
- Toxic Recommender Algorithms: Immunities, Liabilities and the Regulated Self-regulation of the Digital Services Act and the Online Safety Act, forthcoming JOURNAL OF MEDIA LAW (2024) https://doi.org/10.1080/17577632.2024.2408912
- Towards a Regulatory Theory of Platform Rule: Corporate “Sovereignty” through Immunities, 56 ST. MARY’S LAW JOURNAL (2025) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4764035
- The Right to be Forgotten in Data Protection Law and Two Western Cultures of Privacy, 73 INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW QUARTERLY 737 (2023)
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020589323000258 - What post-mortem privacy may teach us about privacy, 47 COMPUTER LAW AND SECURITY REVIEW (2022) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2022.105737
- Platform Regulation of Hate Speech – A Transatlantic Speech Compromise?, 14 JOURNAL OF MEDIA LAW 25 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1080/17577632.2022.2082520
Translated into Hungarian: A gyűlöletbeszéd szabályozása az online platformokon–transzatlanti kompromisszum a szólásszabadság terén? in 11 MEDIAS RES -31–54 (2022) - The Long-Arm of the GDPR and its Inherent Weakness – the EDPB’s Guidelines 05/2021 on the Interplay of Article 3 and Chapter V of the GDPR [2022] REVUE CRITIQUE DE DROIT INTERNATIONAL PRIVE (2022)
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4027796
Translated into French: Lignes directrices 05/2021 du CEPD sur l’interaction entre l’article 3 et le chapitre V du RGPD Le RGPD entre protection accrue et faiblesse inhérente - Islamophobia, ‘Gross Offensiveness’ and the Internet, 27 INFORMATION & COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY LAW 111 (2017)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13600834.2017.1393936?scroll=top&needAccess=true - Corporate Human Rights Accountability: the Objections of Western Governments to the Alien Tort Statute, 63 INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW QUARTERLY 665 (2014) https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020589314000323
- Barbarians in Our Midst: ‘Cultural Diversity’ on the Internet,5 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF LAW AND TECHNOLOGY (2014) https://ejlt.org/index.php/ejlt/article/view/304
- Google: the rise and rise of online intermediaries in the governance of the Internet and beyond (Part 2) 21 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LAW AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 187 (2013)
https://academic.oup.com/ijlit/article/21/2/187/732161 - The rise and rise of online intermediaries in the governance of the Internet and beyond – connectivity intermediaries, 26 INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF LAW, COMPUTERS AND TECHNOLOGY 185 (2012) https://doi.org/10.1080/13600869.2012.698455
- Ignorance is no Defence but is Inaccessibility? On the Accessibility of National Laws to Foreign Online Publishers, 14 INFORMATION & COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY LAW 25 (2005)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1360083042000325292 - Who has the Right to Govern Online Activity? – A Criminal and Civil Point of View, 18 INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF LAW, COMPUTERS & TECHNOLOGY 387 (2004)
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cirl/2004/00000018/00000003/art00006 - The Rule of Law, Jurisdiction and the Internet, 12 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LAW AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 365 (2004)
http://ijlit.oxfordjournals.org/content/12/3/365.full.pdf - Defamation on the Internet – Nice Decision, Shame about the Reasoning. Dow Jones & Co v Gutnick, 52 INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW QUARTERLY 1049 (2003)
https://doi.org/10.1093/iclq/52.4.1049 - Eggs, Jurisdiction and the Internet, 51 INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW QUARTERLY 555 (2002) https://doi.org/10.1093/iclq/51.3.555
- Yahoo! – but no Hooray! for the international online community 75 AUSTRALIAN LAW JOURNAL 411 (2001)
- Injunctions v Damages (The Age of the Internet) Old Battle of Remedies Revisited, 11 JOURNAL OF LAW, INFORMATION AND SCIENCE 12 (2001)
http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/JlLawInfoSci/2000/12.html - Defamation on the Internet – A Duty Free Zone After All? Macquarie Bank Ltd & Anor v Berg 22 SYDNEY LAW REVIEW 119 (2000)
http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/SydLawRw/2000/4.html - Legal Reasoning and Legal Change in the Age of the Internet – Why the Ground Rules are still Valid 7 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LAW AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 123 (1999) https://doi.org/10.1093/ijlit/7.2.123
- The Horror-Scope for the Taxation Office: The Internet and its Impact on ‘Residence’’ 21 UNIVERSITY OF NSW LAW JOURNAL 436 (1998)
http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UNSWLawJl/1998/53.html
Book Chapters
- Fitbit Health Data, Apple’s Geo-Data and Google Searches: Cross-border Law Enforcement and the Territoriality Principle in TRANSFORMATIONS IN CRIMINAL JURISDICTION: EXTRATERRITORIALITY AND ENFORCEMENT (Farmer, M.ÓFloinn, J.Hörnle, D. Ormerod eds, Hart, 2023)
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4286816 - Jurisdiction in Network Society in RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON INTERNATIONAL LAW AND CYBERSPACE (N. Tsagourias, R.Buchan eds., 2nded, Edward Elgar, 2021)
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3991662 - The Pixelated Human: Humanity in the Grip of Algorithmic Personalisation in DATA-DRIVEN PERSONALISATION IN MARKETS, POLITICS AND LAW ( Kohl, J. Eisler eds., Cambridge University Press, 2021) https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108891325.003
- All data is credit data: personalised consumer credit scores and anti-discrimination law in DATA-DRIVEN PERSONALISATION IN MARKETS, POLITICS AND LAW (U. Kohl, J. Eisler eds., CUP, 2021) (with N. Collado-Rodriguez)
- Blockchain Utopia and its Governance Shortfalls in BLOCKCHAIN AND PUBLIC LAW (O. Pollicino, G. De Gregorio eds., Edward Elgar, 2021)
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3811416 - Territoriality and Globalization in THE OXFORD HANDBOOK ON JURISDICTION IN INTERNATIONAL LAW (S. Allen, D. Costelloe, M. Fitzmaurice, P. Gragl, E. Guntrip eds., Oxford University Press, 2019)
https://doi.org/10.1093/law/9780198786146.003.0013 - Internet Governance and the Resilience of the Nation State in THE NET AND THE NATION STATE – MULTIDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON INTERNET GOVERNANCE (Uta Kohl ed., Cambridge University Press, 2017) (with Fox)
- Censorship & Cyberborders through EU Data Protection Law in THE NET AND THE NATION STATE – MULTIDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON INTERNET GOVERNANCE (Uta Kohl ed., Cambridge University Press, 2017) (with D. Rowland)
- Conflict of Laws and the Internet in THE OXFORD HANDBOOK ON THE LAW AND REGULATION OF TECHNOLOGY (R. Brownsword, E. Scotford, K. Yeung eds., Oxford University Press, 2017)
- Jurisdiction in Cyberspace in RESEARCH HANDBOOK OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND CYBERSPACE (N. Tsagourias, R. Buchan eds., Edward Elgar, 2015)
Book Reviews, Blogs and Other Pieces
- Meta drops fact-checking ‘starting in the US’. From the ‘Brussels Effect’ to the ‘Texas Effect’ (17 Jan 2025) EU RENEW BLOG SERIES
- Toxic Recommender Algorithms: How the Law has Facilitated Them and Continues to Do So (10 Oct 2024) EU RENEW BLOG SERIES
- Foreword to J. Hörnle’S Internet Jurisdiction Law and Practice (OUP, 2021)
- Civil Litigation in Home States – A Willingness to Discipline Corporate Groups (2019) Blog: International Law @ UEA
- Data-driven personalisation and the law – a primer: collective interests engaged by personalisation in markets, politics and law (2019) SOUTHAMPTON LAW SCHOOL WORKING PAPERS (with J. Davey, J. Eisler)
- Book Review: C. Reed, A. Murray, ‘Rethinking the Jurisprudence of Cyberspace’ in 35 COMPUTER LAW & SECURITY REVIEW 239 (2019)
- Google is unlikely to avoid UK courts on Privacy in THE CONVERSATION (18 December 2013) https://theconversation.com/google-is-unlikely-to-avoid-uk-courts-on-privacy-21589
- Book Review: L. Edwards, C. Waelde (eds), ‘Law and the Internet’ (3rd ed, 2009) in 18(2) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LAW AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 194 (2010) http://ijlit.oxfordjournals.org/content/18/2/194.full.pdf
- Book Review: P. Alston, M. Robinson (eds), ‘Human Rights and Development: Towards Mutual Reinforcement (2005) in CAMBRIAN LAW REVIEW 126 (2006)
- Book Review: J. Dine, ‘Companies, International Trade and Human Rights’ (CUP, 2005) in AUSTRALIAN YEARBOOK OF INTERNATIONAL LAW (2006) http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/journals/AUYrBkIntLaw/2006/11.html#Heading59
- Book Review: Tilbury, Davis, Opeskin, ‘Conflicts of Law in Australia’ (2002) in 23 AUSTRALIAN YEARBOOK OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 218 (2004)
- Book Review: G. J. Smith, ‘Internet Law and Regulation’ (3rd ed, 2002) in 1 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION LAW AND TECHNOLOGY (2002) http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/jilt/2002_1/kohl/
- Book Review: P. Levinson, ‘Digital McLuhan – A Guide to the Information Millennium’ (Routledge, 1999) in 1 JOURNAL OF LAW, INFORMATION AND SCIENCE 279 (2000) http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/JlLawInfoSci/2000/18.html