From 15 September to 18 September, Prof. Nehal Bhuta FRSE from University of Edinburgh will undertake an academic visit to Peking University Law School and gives three lectures broadly on artificial intelligence, international law and international order. Prof. Bhuta holds the Chair of Public International Law at University of Edinburgh and is Co-Director of the Edinburgh Centre for International and Global Law. He previously held the Chair of Public International Law at the European University Institute in Florence, where was also Co-Director of the Institute’s Academy of European Law. 

    In the first lecture “The Global Governance of Military Artificial Intelligence” on 16 September, Prof. Bhuta will discuss the challenges posed by the military adoption of artificial intelligence, and argue that international law and the concept of due diligence should have a shaping effect on the global governance of military artificial intelligence. Prof. Dai Xin, Vice Dean of Peking University Law School, and Prof. Li Qiang, Director of the Institute of Military Law of China University of Political Science and Law will be the discussants.

    On 17 September, Prof. Bhuta will give the second lecture titled “Social Rights and the Modern State”, in which he challenges the predominant notion that social rights were a conceptual by-product of the rise of the welfare state. Instead, through the prism of international legal history, Prof. Bhuta argues that in the 19th century, the concept of social rights emerged as “collective natural rights” and were used to articulate a concept of the state as a public power that represented the interests of the whole of society. The reinvigoration of the historical lineage of social rights is potentially innovative and useful in this transformative era of international order. Prof. Zhang Yongle, Professor of Legal History from Peking University Law School, and Prof. Liu Yang from Remin University of China will be the discussants.

    On 18 September, Prof. Bhuta will give a keynote speech “Statecraft, Lawcraft and Soulcraft: International Law in the Interregnum” for the Conference on State, State Theory and International Law. Prof. Zhao Hong, Professor of Peking University Law School and Former Chair of the WTO Appellate Body, Prof. Zhang Yongle, and Prof. Chen Yifeng, Professor of International Law and the Executive Director of Peking University Institute of International Law will be the discussants.