Lecture and Colloquium Tech & Society: “Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology”

Aspen Institute España and Fundación Telefónica hosted the fourth lecture and colloquium of the VII Edition of the Tech & Society Program on “Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology” next Monday,  November 27th with Anu Bradford, professor of Law, Henry L. Moses Professor of International Law and Organizations at Columbia Law School Director, European Legal Studies Center. The conference will be moderated by José Ignacio Torreblanca, journalist and director and senior researcher at the Madrid office of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). This meeting took place in English and will be interpreted in LSE.

Anu Bradford

Is a renowned scholar recognized for her expertise in the European Union’s regulatory power and its global impact. She is best known for coining the term “the Brussels Effect,” which
refers to the EU’s significant influence on global markets. Her book, “The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World,” published in 2020, earned accolades as one of the best books of the year by Foreign Affairs. In September 2023, she is set to release her next book, “Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology”. Apart from her work on the Brussels Effect, Bradford is an authority in international antitrust law. She leads the Comparative Competition Law Project, which compiles extensive global data on antitrust laws and enforcement across various countries and time periods. Before joining the Law School faculty, she worked as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School, practiced EU and antitrust law in Brussels, and advised on economic policy in the Finnish Parliament. Bradford is also involved in various academic and scholarly organizations, including the World Economic Forum, where she was named a Young Global Leader in 2010. She currently holds positions as the director of the European Legal Studies Center, a senior scholar at Columbia Business School’s Chazen Institute for Global Business, and a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Moreover, she is also a Council member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

José Ignacio Torreblanca

Director of the Madrid office and Senior Researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and teaches Political Science at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) in Madrid. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of the journals Esglobal, Política Exterior and Ethic, a trustee of the Felipe González Foundation, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Real Instituto Elcano de Estudios Internacionales. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Hermes Institute, dedicated to the promotion of digital rights. To his academic and research activity he adds a public communication dimension as a weekly columnist for the newspaper El Mundo, a regular contributor to Radio Nacional de España (RNE) and Radio Televisión Española (RTVE). Previously, he was the editorial director of El País and a member of its Editorial Board. He has interviewed Anne Applebaum, George Soros, Paul Collier, Ivan Krastev, Felipe González, Javier Solana and Josep Borrell. Torreblanca regularly advises European institutions, governments, and companies on technology and geopolitics. Recently, he has collaborated with the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the design and analysis of the contents of the EU-LAC Digital Alliance launched in Bogota in March 2022 as well as in the design and contents of the EU Digital External Strategy approved by the EU Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) in July 2022. His latest publications on technology and geopolitics include: ‘Onwards and Outwards: Why the EU Needs to Move from Strategic Autonomy to Strategic Interdependence’ (ECFR, August 2023); ‘The EU: A force for (digital) Good? (in Tech4Democracy, IE University, July 2023); ‘The EU and Latin America: Convergences and divergences’ (EUISS, July 2023), co-authored with Carla Hobbs et al.; ‘Digital diplomacy: How to unlock the Global Gateway’s potential in Latin America and the Caribbean’ (ECFR, May 2023); ‘Insights from an AI author: ‘The geopolitical consequences of ChatGPT’, co-authored with Víctor Muñoz’ (ECFR, February 2023), and ‘Ukraine one year on When tech companies go to war’ (ECFR, March 2023).

VII Edition of the Tech & Society Program

Aspen Institute España and Fundación Telefónica launched the VII Edition of the Tech & Society Program. The VI edition will bring together leaders from all sectors of civil society to discuss the new technological challenges and their influence in areas as diverse as human relations, politics, education, culture, economics and medicine