Academic interests and background
Siena Anstis is a Doctoral Fellow at the University of Oslo’s Faculty of Law. Her primary research interests touch on international law, human rights law, migration, and law and technology (with a particular interest in technology and government surveillance of human rights defenders, journalists, and other members of civil society). Her doctoral project examines the regulation of transnational repression under international law.
Siena holds an LL.M. from the University of Cambridge, a BA and LLB from McGill University (Montreal), and a BA in Journalism and Anthropology from Concordia University (Montreal). She has worked in the area of technology and human rights, as well as practiced as a refugee lawyer in Toronto and as a litigator in New York City.
Teaching
Selected lectures and/or seminars in the following programs:
- HUMR4504 – Human Rights in Practice
- HUMR5140 – Human Rights in International and National Law
- HUMR5191 – Human Rights Methodology: Research, Analysis and Thesis
Publications
- Anstis, Siena. “Regulating Transnational Dissident Cyber Espionage: An International Treaty?” (Forthcoming, 2024) International & Comparative Law Quarterly.
- Anstis, Siena, Noura Al-Jizawi, and Ron Deibert. “Transnational Repression and the Different Faces of Sovereignty” (Summer 2023) Temple Law Review.
- Anstis, Siena, Niamh Leonard, and Jonathon W. Penney. “Moving from Secrecy to Transparency in the Offensive Cyber Capabilities Sector: The Case of Dual-Use Technologies Exports” (2023) Computer Law & Security Review 1.
- Anstis, Siena, Sophie Barnett, Sharly Chan, and Ron Deibert. “The Negative Externalities of Cyberspace Instability for Global Civil Society.” In Cyberspace and Instability, edited by Robert Chesney, James Shires and Max Smeets, Edinburgh University Press, 2022, pp. 246-284.
- Anstis, Siena and Sophie Barnett. “Digital Transnational Repression and Host States’ Obligation to Protect Against Human Rights Abuses” (2022) Oxford Journal of Human Rights Practice 1.
- Anstis, Siena and RJ Reid. “The Adverse Human Rights Impacts of Canadian Technology Companies: Reforming Export Control with the Introduction of Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence” (2021) Canadian Journal of Law and Technology 1.
- Anstis, Siena. “Government Procurement Law and Hacking Technology: The Role of Public Contracting in Regulating an Invisible Market” (2021) 41 Computer Law & Security Review 1.
- Anstis, Siena and Molly Joeck. “Detaining the Uncooperative Migrant” (2020) 33 Osgoode Hall Journal of Law and Social Policy 38.
- Anstis, Siena, Joshua Blum, and Jared Will. “Separate but Unequal: Immigration Detention in Canada and the Great Writ of Liberty” (2018) 63:2 McGill Law Journal 1.
- Anstis, Siena, Thomas Touchie and The Honourable Justice Thomas A. Cromwell. “Revisiting the Role of Presumptions of Legislative Intent in Statutory Interpretation” (2017) 95:2 Canadian Bar Review 297.
- Anstis, Siena and the The Homourable Justice Thomas A. Cromwell. “The Legal Services Gap: Access to Justice as a Regulatory Issue” (2017) 42:1 Queen’s Law Journal 1.
- Anstis, Siena and Dr. Fabien Gélinas, Clément Camion, Catherine Piché, Mariko Khan and Karine Bates. Foundations of Civil Justice: Towards a Value-Based Framework for Civil Reform (Springer: New York, 2015).
- Anstis, Siena and Frédéric Mégret. “The Taylor Case: Aiding and Abetting, Specific Direction and the Possibility of Strict Liability for Remote Offenders” in Collection of Essays in Honour of Justice Hassan Bubacar Jallow (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2015).
- Anstis, Siena and Dr. Nandini Ramanujam. “Legal Empowerment, Social Movements and Fostering Equitable Economic Development in Cambodia” (2013) 2:1 Canadian Journal of Poverty Law.
- Anstis, Siena. “Using Law to Impair the Rights and Freedoms of Human Rights Defenders: A Case Study of Cambodia” (2012) 4:3 Oxford Journal of Human Rights Practice.
Research Reports
- Noural Al-Jizawi, Siena Anstis, Sophie Barnett, Sharly Chan, Niamh Leonard, Adam Senft, and Ron Deibert, “Psychological and Emotional War: Digital Transnational Repression in Canada” (2022) Citizen Lab Research Report No. 151, University of Toronto.
- Anstis, Siena, Irene Poetranto and Sharly Chan. On/Offline: Multidimensional Threats Faced by Environmental Human Rights Defenders in Southeast Asia 2020. Global Information Society Watch.