The Next Frontier is Your Mind: Neurotechnologies, Human Rights, and the Battle for Your Brain
Jared Genser, Managing Director of Perseus Strategies
Attend in person or via Zoom. Zoom registration at
http://myumi.ch/rr36r
Emerging technologies are evolving at an astonishing pace. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the field of neurotechnology, which refers to devices capable of recording, interpreting, or altering brain activity. Neurotechnology has long been used in scientific settings, pioneering both brain research and medical breakthroughs; in recent years, neurotechnology has allowed patients with paralysis to regain the ability to communicate, and helped blind people reclaim partial vision. Recently, neurotechnology has expanded beyond medical settings into the consumer world, with a host of products entering the market that allow consumers and companies to access intimate brain data. Among others, these products include brain training kits, sleep aids, devices that track levels of focus, and toy helicopters that consumers fly using concentration. This brings great promise of innovation and development, but also pressing concerns, particularly given privacy risks, rapid advances in the capacity to decode brain scans using generative AI, and the possibility of mental interference.
In this lecture, international human rights lawyer Jared Genser will discuss the unique human rights challenges posed by neurotechnologies. Speaking as co-founder and General Counsel of the Neurorights Foundation, Genser will examine the ways in which neurotechnology has the potential to change what it means to be human. In particular, he will discuss how the loss of mental privacy and the risk of mental manipulation present challenges that were previously unimagined and which demand immediate action. He will explore the implications of neurotechnology on existing legal, ethical, and regulatory regimes, pulling directly from his experience advising the United Nations, industry partners, and governments around the world. As a way forward, Genser will introduce the notion of “neurorights”, which involves further interpreting existing human rights law to safeguard the right to mental integrity, the right to mental agency, the right to mental privacy, the right to fair access to mental augmentation, and the right to protection from algorithmic bias. The neurorights movement, he will argue, is necessary to prevent against the misuse and abuse of neurotechnology before it’s too late.
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Jared Genser has been an international human rights lawyer for more than two decades. He is Managing Director of Perseus Strategies, a public interest law firm, Special Advisor on the Responsibility to Protect to the Organization of American States, and outside General Counsel to the Neurorights Foundation. Referred to by the New York Times as “The Extractor” for his work freeing political prisoners worldwide, he has served as pro bono counsel to five Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, including three Laureates who won their Prize while imprisoned — Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma, 2006-2010), Liu Xiaobo (China, 2010-2017), and Ales Bialiatski (Belarus, 2023-Present) — as well as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Elie Wiesel.
Genser was previously a partner in the government affairs practice of DLA Piper LLP and a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. He has also been an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and the University of Michigan Law School, across which he taught semester-long seminars about the UN Security Council seven times.
In addition, he was an Associate of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University from 2014-2016, a Visiting Fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy from 2006-2007, and earlier in his career was named by the National Law Journal as one of “40 Under 40: Washington’s Rising Stars.” Genser’s other past clients have included former Czech Republic President Václav Havel, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, and former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed. Over his career, he has also advised multilateral institutions, governments, companies, foundations, and civil society organizations on ensuring their work was consistent with international human rights, labor rights, and environmental rights standards. Coming from his experience freeing his first client as a law student, in 2001 he founded Freedom Now, a non-governmental organization that works to free prisoners of conscience worldwide. Genser holds a B.S. from Cornell University, an M.P.P. from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was an Alumni Public Service Fellow, and a J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School.
He is author of The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention: Commentary and Guide to Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2019). In addition, he is co-editor of The UN Security Council in the Age of Human Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and The Responsibility to Protect: The Promise of Stopping Mass Atrocities in Our Times (Oxford University Press, 2011). His forthcoming book is a co-edited volume with former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein entitled The Oxford Handbook on the UN Human Rights System (Oxford University Press, 2024).
Genser was previously selected as one of three winners of the Tällberg Eliasson Global Leadership Prize from among 2,165 nominees from 135 countries. He has received the American Bar Association’s International Human Rights Award, Liberty in North Korea’s Freedom Fighter Award, and the Charles Bronfman Prize. Genser is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, and was selected as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum (2008). He is a member of the D.C. Bar, Maryland Bar, and is a solicitor of England and Wales. Married with two children, Genser is an avid ice hockey player, a sport he took up in college.
If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at is-michigan@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
Emerging technologies are evolving at an astonishing pace. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the field of neurotechnology, which refers to devices capable of recording, interpreting, or altering brain activity. Neurotechnology has long been used in scientific settings, pioneering both brain research and medical breakthroughs; in recent years, neurotechnology has allowed patients with paralysis to regain the ability to communicate, and helped blind people reclaim partial vision. Recently, neurotechnology has expanded beyond medical settings into the consumer world, with a host of products entering the market that allow consumers and companies to access intimate brain data. Among others, these products include brain training kits, sleep aids, devices that track levels of focus, and toy helicopters that consumers fly using concentration. This brings great promise of innovation and development, but also pressing concerns, particularly given privacy risks, rapid advances in the capacity to decode brain scans using generative AI, and the possibility of mental interference.
In this lecture, international human rights lawyer Jared Genser will discuss the unique human rights challenges posed by neurotechnologies. Speaking as co-founder and General Counsel of the Neurorights Foundation, Genser will examine the ways in which neurotechnology has the potential to change what it means to be human. In particular, he will discuss how the loss of mental privacy and the risk of mental manipulation present challenges that were previously unimagined and which demand immediate action. He will explore the implications of neurotechnology on existing legal, ethical, and regulatory regimes, pulling directly from his experience advising the United Nations, industry partners, and governments around the world. As a way forward, Genser will introduce the notion of “neurorights”, which involves further interpreting existing human rights law to safeguard the right to mental integrity, the right to mental agency, the right to mental privacy, the right to fair access to mental augmentation, and the right to protection from algorithmic bias. The neurorights movement, he will argue, is necessary to prevent against the misuse and abuse of neurotechnology before it’s too late.
---
Jared Genser has been an international human rights lawyer for more than two decades. He is Managing Director of Perseus Strategies, a public interest law firm, Special Advisor on the Responsibility to Protect to the Organization of American States, and outside General Counsel to the Neurorights Foundation. Referred to by the New York Times as “The Extractor” for his work freeing political prisoners worldwide, he has served as pro bono counsel to five Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, including three Laureates who won their Prize while imprisoned — Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma, 2006-2010), Liu Xiaobo (China, 2010-2017), and Ales Bialiatski (Belarus, 2023-Present) — as well as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Elie Wiesel.
Genser was previously a partner in the government affairs practice of DLA Piper LLP and a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. He has also been an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and the University of Michigan Law School, across which he taught semester-long seminars about the UN Security Council seven times.
In addition, he was an Associate of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University from 2014-2016, a Visiting Fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy from 2006-2007, and earlier in his career was named by the National Law Journal as one of “40 Under 40: Washington’s Rising Stars.” Genser’s other past clients have included former Czech Republic President Václav Havel, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, and former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed. Over his career, he has also advised multilateral institutions, governments, companies, foundations, and civil society organizations on ensuring their work was consistent with international human rights, labor rights, and environmental rights standards. Coming from his experience freeing his first client as a law student, in 2001 he founded Freedom Now, a non-governmental organization that works to free prisoners of conscience worldwide. Genser holds a B.S. from Cornell University, an M.P.P. from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was an Alumni Public Service Fellow, and a J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School.
He is author of The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention: Commentary and Guide to Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2019). In addition, he is co-editor of The UN Security Council in the Age of Human Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and The Responsibility to Protect: The Promise of Stopping Mass Atrocities in Our Times (Oxford University Press, 2011). His forthcoming book is a co-edited volume with former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein entitled The Oxford Handbook on the UN Human Rights System (Oxford University Press, 2024).
Genser was previously selected as one of three winners of the Tällberg Eliasson Global Leadership Prize from among 2,165 nominees from 135 countries. He has received the American Bar Association’s International Human Rights Award, Liberty in North Korea’s Freedom Fighter Award, and the Charles Bronfman Prize. Genser is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, and was selected as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum (2008). He is a member of the D.C. Bar, Maryland Bar, and is a solicitor of England and Wales. Married with two children, Genser is an avid ice hockey player, a sport he took up in college.
If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at is-michigan@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
| Building: | Weiser Hall |
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| Event Type: | Lecture / Discussion |
| Tags: | human rights, international |
| Source: | Happening @ Michigan from Program in International and Comparative Studies, International Institute, Donia Human Rights Center |
