Monika Zalnieriute

Dr. Monika Zalnieriute is a Research Fellow and Lead of ‘Technologies and Rule of Law’ Stream at the Allens Hub for Technology, Law & Innovation, Faculty of Law, UNSW Sydney. Monika’s research explores the interplay between law, technology, and politics, and focuses on international human rights law, Internet policy, automation and rule of law in the digital age. Her work also addresses intersection between feminist theory, LGBTI rights, Internet platforms and international data privacy law.

Monika holds a PhD in Law from European University Institute in Florence. She has previously held a two-year Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Melbourne, where she worked on the digital rights and discrimination of marginalized groups online. Monika believes that research only matters if it has a strong and tangible impact well beyond academia; and thus is actively engaged both within academic, civil society and policy-making circles. She is founding Director of a researched-based advocacy organization ‘ZEPHIRO: Progressive Platform for Human Rights’ in Vilnius, Lithuania; and a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Media, Data and Society at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Monika provides legal research expertise on data privacy and freedom of expression to the World Health Organization, Council of Europe and non-governmental organizations, such as Article 19 and Privacy International. Monika sits on the International Committee of the Australian Privacy Foundation, and has served on the Executive Committee of the NCSG in ICANN, where she has worked towards the strengthening of the human rights protection within ICANN policies and procedures.

Monika has published in the Modern Law Review, Yale Journal of Law & Technology, Stanford Journal of International Law, Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts, Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law and Justice; and is currently working on a monograph on political economy of data privacy law. These days Monika also spends a lot of her time thinking and writing about the rule of law and automation of government decision-making.