Ian Barber
Lead, Legal and Advocacy
ian@gp-digital.org
Ian provides legal analysis and expertise to GPD’s team, projects and partners across a range of digital policy issues. He directly engages in legal processes at the United Nations, the Council of Europe and on the national level, as well as leading capacity building efforts on the application of international human rights law.
Ian is a qualified lawyer in New York and Washington, D.C. He previously worked at law firms and non-governmental organisations in the San Francisco Bay Area. He holds a Juris Doctor from UC Law San Francisco, an LLM from SOAS University of London and a BA from McGill University.
Explore their work
17 Jun 2025
Blog post
Final Stretch, High Stakes: Getting UN AI Governance Back on Track
Negotiations are advancing rapidly on the terms of reference (ToR) and modalities for two key initiatives established under the Global Digital Compact—the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence and the Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance. However, serious concerns have emerged about whether these mechanisms will live up to…
22 Jan 2025
Blog post
2025: a stress test for the multistakeholder model?
For those of us advocating for human rights-based digital policy, 2024 was a difficult year. An unprecedented “race to governance” saw states battling to assert sovereignty on the terrain of digital technologies—heralding a sharp multilateral turn in the field, evident in processes from the Global Digital Compact (GDC) to the UN…
02 Sep 2024
Blog post
The UN Cybercrime Convention: where do we go from here?
On 8 August 2024, amidst widespread concern by many observers, including GPD, the text of the draft United Nations Convention against combating cybercrime was agreed to by governments in New York, marking the conclusion of a fractious three year negotiation process. …