Collated writing

Overview

I've written or contributed to a range of outputs across policy, legal research, and technology governance.

Below is an illustrative list of publications, reports, and articles. I also publish a blog available here.

Policy Commentary & Advocacy

Wasting Time on AI Regulation (6-Part Series)

• "Wasting Time on AI Regulation and Sovereign AI in New Zealand (1 of 6)" — Brainbox Institute

• "The Information Problem (2 of 6)" — Brainbox Institute

• "The Coordination Problem (3 of 6)" — Brainbox Institute

• "The Economic Problem (4 of 6)" — Brainbox Institute

• "The Policy Problem (5 of 6)" — Brainbox Institute

• "Constructive Suggestions for Time Well Spent (6 of 6)" — Brainbox Institute

Blogs and opinion

• "Platforms Are Testing Self-Regulation in New Zealand. It Needs a Lot of Work" — Lawfare, September 1, 2022

• "Building Common Infrastructure for Meaningful Tech Transparency" — Tech Policy Press, February 22, 2024

• "Opinion: Global Issues Require Global Responses" — Asia New Zealand Foundation, November 22, 2023

• "Wasting time on AI Regulation and Sovereign AI (Series)" — Brainbox Institute, November 2025

• "What New Zealand Commentators Are Missing About the Christchurch Call" — Brainbox Institute

• "Sharing Our Submission on New Zealand's Proposed Content Regulation Framework" — Brainbox Institute

• "Global Digital Compact (GDC) Presents Critical Opportunity for NZ" — Brainbox Institute

Analysis and reference

• "Brainbox, GNI and DTSP Facilitate Workshops for Risk Assessment Under Europe's Digital Services Act" — Brainbox Institute

• "Workshop Summary: Implementing Risk Assessments Under DSA" — Digital Trust & Safety Partnership

• "Our Perspective on New Zealand's Proposed Platform Regulation" — Brainbox Institute

• "Online Platform Accountability: EU and NZ Perspectives Explored in New Policy Paper" — Brainbox Institute

• Action Coalition on Meaningful Transparency (ACT) — Project lead. Global multi-stakeholder coalition working towards effective technology transparency

• Machine-Readable Legal Materials — Preparing publicly available machine-structured legislation so it can be used in practice

• Syncopate Lab — With Verb. Public-facing experiments in how technology itself can be used for regulatory purposes

• Content Regulation and Disinformation in New Zealand — Brainbox Institute, funded by the Borrin Foundation and InternetNZ. Legal research on disinformation policy consistent with human rights

• Tribal Digital Identity Project with Āhau — With Verb and Āhau. Legal research and design for decentralised identity services for iwi and hapū

• Analysing Judicial Decisions at Scale — With Openlaw NZ. Open source research tooling for analysing case law at scale

• "New Zealand Law and Synthetic Pornography" — Submission to the Justice Committee on gaps in criminal law covering non-consensual synthetic sexual imagery

• "Submission on the Proposed National Internet Filter" — Brainbox Institute

Academic and academic-adjacent

Peer-Reviewed Publications

• "Governing Digital Legal Systems: Insights on AI and Rules as Code" (2024) — Syncopate Lab. Published in MIT Computational Law Report

• "The Idea of Access to Justice: Reflections on New Zealand's Accident Compensation (or Personal Injury) System" — Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice, (2016) 33(2) 197. Co-authors: Tiho Mijatov, Warren Forster

• "Problems with Access to Law in Personal Injury Disputes" — New Zealand Universities Law Review, (2016) 27 NZULR 365. Co-authors: Tiho Mijatov, Warren Forster. Shortlisted for Best Published Article 2017

• "Deepfakes and Synthetic Media" — In: Emerging Technologies and International Security, Routledge (2020), Chapter 16. Co-authors: Curtis Barnes, Tom Barraclough

Dissertation

• "How Far Can the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River) Proposal Be Said to Reflect the Rights of Nature in New Zealand?" (2013) — LLB(Hons) dissertation, University of Otago. On legal personality for the Whanganui River and what it does and does not owe to rights of nature theory. Cited 27 times on Google Scholar, including in international rights of nature scholarship

Major Research Reports

• "Shadow Report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities" (2014) — Acclaim Otago/NZ Law Foundation. Cited by Minister for ACC as basis for policy reform (Direct PDF)

• "Understanding the Problem: An Analysis of ACC Appeals Processes" (2015) — NZ Law Foundation [2015] NZLFRRp 3. Empirical analysis of 500+ appeals

• "Solving the Problem: Causation, Transparency and Access to Justice" (2017) — NZ Law Foundation [2017] NZLFRRp 10

• "Perception Inception: Preparing for Deepfakes and the Synthetic Media of Tomorrow" (2019) — Brainbox Institute/NZ Law Foundation [2019] NZLFRRp 5

• "Legislation as Code in New Zealand" (2021) — Brainbox Institute/NZ Law Foundation. Recognised in OECD policy brief

• "Making New Zealand Accessible: A Design for Effective Accessibility Legislation" (2021) — NZ Law Foundation [2021] NZLFRRp 8. Includes draft accessibility legislation

• "Access to Legislation Data" (2024) — Parliamentary Counsel Office/Syncopate Lab. Report on use cases and recommendations for structuring legislative data

• "Appropriate Frameworks for Social Media Analysis in New Zealand" (2022) — Brainbox Institute for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Argues that systematic social media analysis should sit with an independent body outside government (Direct PDF)

• "Transparency-Based Approaches to Social Media Regulation" — Brainbox Institute with the University of Otago, supported by the Global Partnership on AI. Study of recommender systems and terrorist and violent extremist content

• "Assessing Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet for Institutional Investors" — Brainbox Institute. Assessment of platform company performance following the Christchurch attacks

• "Deciphering Media Literacy" (2023) — Brainbox Institute. Calls for national media literacy strategy

• "Strengthening Civil Society Resilience to Mis- and Disinformation in Aotearoa New Zealand" (2024) — Report of the Multi-Stakeholder Group advising the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, drafted by Brainbox Institute (Direct PDF)

• "AI and Digital Technologies: A Human Rights and Te Tiriti o Waitangi Approach" (2026) — Te Kāhui Tika Tangata Human Rights Commission. Underlying research conducted by Brainbox (Full report PDF | Executive summary)