Are emergent transnational technologies such as drone warfare, climate engineering and mass surveillance legal under international law? That’s the question Jon Weiss, a new doctoral student at Queen’s Law, will be exploring with funding from the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship. The award, given by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to support high-caliber graduate student scholars, is valued at $35,000 per year until 2017-18.

Weiss’ proposed dissertation, “Determining the Legality of Emergent Transnational Technologies: Introducing the Theory of ‘Capture’ in International Law,” aims to investigate the intersection of philosophy and international law involved in his topic.

This work comes at a particularly important time. “Canada finds itself in a rapidly changing world order,” explains Weiss, “the dynamics of which are driven in large part by the invention of emergent transnational technologies that outpace developments in our understanding of the social, political, ethical and legal consequences.”

Prior to coming the Queen’s, Weiss earned his AB Summa Cum Laude from Harvard and a JD and an LLM, both from the University of Victoria. His doctoral work will be an expansion of his LLM thesis, which was also funded through a Bombardier Graduate Scholarship as well as the University of Victoria President’s Research Scholarship.

He plans to use the new funds to support his research methodology that will combine elements of an investigation into the philosophy of law, a history of the international system, an analysis of legal doctrine and a study of current affairs.

Weiss chose Queen’s specifically to pursue his doctoral studies so that he could work with Professor Art Cockfield, “an expert in law and technology theory,” and Professor Will Kymlicka, “a leading political philosopher.” Cockfield is also a faculty member with the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen’s University, where leading edge research explores camera surveillance, ID systems, biometrics, social media, border and airport controls on many aspects of contemporary monitoring, tracking, management and control.

“I am very excited to commence both coursework and my dissertation,” says Weiss during his first week at Queen’s.