Reema Moussa  0:01  
From the Internet Law & Policy Boundary, this is the Tech Policy Grind podcast. Every two weeks, we'll discuss recent developments and exciting topics in the technology and internet law and policy space. I'm Reema Moussa, and I'm a member of the fourth cohort of foundry. The Foundry is a collaborative organization for internet law and policy professionals who are passionate about disruptive innovation.

In this week's episode, we're kicking off a new series within the show, foundry fellow highlights. Every now and again, we'll catch up with a current or former fellow with the ILPF and hear their stories: from their current work, lessons learned and everything in between. For our first iteration of foundry fellow highlights, I had the honor of chatting with Meri Baghdasaryan, a legal fellow at EFF and a member of the current class of foundry fellows. Hi, Meri, how are you?

Meri Baghdasaryan  1:08  
Hey Reema. I'm great. How are you?

Reema Moussa  1:11  
Doing well. I'm excited to chat with you today. So you're a legal fellow at EFF. And your work focuses on very interesting intersections of human rights, free speech and surveillance in the digital context. And that's a really fascinating sort of combination of focuses. But how did you get here? What was your sort of career path that led you to this work that you're doing now?

Meri Baghdasaryan  1:49  
Thanks Reema. First off, thanks for having me. Happy to share my journey to, to EFF. So honestly, I think it's important to say that I.. the first time that I got any interaction with any topics with tech law and policy was when I was doing my Master of Laws Degree at Central European University in Hungary. And we had a special course at the seat of European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and it was called Internet and human rights, and the case that we were mostly focusing on was called Delfi versus Estonia. And for people that follow the topic of intermediate liability, this case set the precedent for the Council of Europe member states, and also has been echoed in the EU law on this same issue. So this was the first time I started thinking about the intersection between technology, human rights and internet and honestly found it so fascinating. But unfortunately, at the time, I didn't see more opportunities to get involved in this, and you know, dig deeper into these issues. And after this degree, I went back to my home country, Armenia, and I started working for UNDP as a consultant, and also doing international human rights litigation before the same Court, the European Court of Human Rights and UN Human Rights Committee. So my practice focused on so many different human rights issues from, you know, fair trial to prohibition of torture, and from anti discrimination to women's rights and rights of persons with disabilities. So it was quite broad. But you know, this spark that I had, back in Strasbourg, with this course, was still alive and kicking, I would say, and literally a year after my graduation, I accidentally came across a fellowship program by Internet Society, which was, I think, called Introduction to internet governance, and I was more interested on the digital rights aspect of it. And honestly, it was part of a bigger program known as Youth at the Internet Governance Forum. And I didn't know anything about internet governance or the forum. But again, my focus was more on the digital rights. And I took the course. It was a month long course with weekly discussions. I tremendously enjoyed my participation in it, met great people, and I'm still friends with many of them. And it turned out that this program had a second phase. So, if you had great participation in the first phase then you were given the full fellowship to go to that year's Internet Governance Forum, which in 2016, was in Guadalajara in Mexico. So you know, my interests led to a trip to Mexico where I met a huge community of people working in so many different fields representing different stakeholder groups, I discovered a wide variety of issues in this space. It was a bit overwhelming, honestly. But basically, you know, this was... I guess it was meant to be. And I met a lot of good people there. You know, one thing led to the other, I got later engaged in European communities for Internet governance, started working on different research projects, and working with clients on these topics. And, you know, having kind of understood the landscape on the European side, I was really curious about the US perspective on tech law and policy. So in 2021, I graduated from University of Pennsylvania Law School's LLM program with concentration in intellectual property and technology law. And this was a very insightful experience for me, to have this comparative perspective on these issues. And then I spent my summer at Wikimedia Foundation. And then I started at EFF. So it's been a wild ride, I would say, but also, I went through, you know, a lot of self reflection throughout this journey. So it's, it's been, you know, going from broad human rights practice to human rights and general tech law and policy issues. Yeah, and I think I'm pretty happy with the whole journey.

Reema Moussa  6:54  
Yeah, that's awesome to hear. And thank you for, for sharing your story and your sort of career path, I think it's a unique one. And something that I think is particularly interesting about your background, is, how international in scope your work has been, and where your work and, you know, educational career as well has taken you. And so sort of on that note, what do you think, is the role of the International lens on tech law and policy in informing both your personal, you know, career interests and journey and then also, perhaps the field as a whole? And how, you know, these issues that, that you work on in particularly interact in the international context?

Meri Baghdasaryan  7:59  
That's a great question, Reema. And honestly, if you asked this question to me, maybe four years ago, my answer would have been different than it is now. Because when I first started engaging in these communities and thinking about these issues, everything was considered to be more global - internet was viewed, as you know, something we all share. And that was the only lens that was... not the only let me correct myself, it wasn't the only but dominant view on these issues. And every every country, every stakeholder, every company was trying to come up with solutions on the global scale, and not to, you know, end up with any type of fragmentation, any type of local solutions that will make work on the international scale more complicated. But as you also know, in the last few years, we have seen so many initiatives on regional or national levels that try to regulate the Internet, from their own perspective, and in their own way. And some are better than the others. But when you look at the bigger picture, this makes the process more complicated. And also what I love about the internet governance space, you know, unlike the UN processes when you have the government's talk with governments, and then the civil society's may be allowed to participate sometimes or is there just with their shadow reports. In the internet governance communities, everyone has the same footing so you don't have to be government representative to have a seat at the table. However, I would say that this model is also in some form of challenging situation right now. And with the rise of more regional or national regulatory initiatives, the role of international law and generally, you know, regulating anything or finding solutions, not even regulating, but just finding solutions, or having a vision on a global scale is not where it was when I was starting out in this space. But this makes, you know, our lives, especially the lives of lawyers or policy professionals more complicated. It's also really exciting because we need to understand how to move forward, how to, you know, enhance innovation and support it while also trying to reduce risks. But at the same time, it's, it's really challenging to, to be able to handle that many regulatory initiatives. On the other hand, I think this is a good time, or maybe we're getting closer to that moment when we'll need to, you know, sit down, and reevaluate where we want to go. And I hope that will be something that we'll all do together on a global level rather than regionally or on national level.

Reema Moussa  11:13  
Yeah, that's really, really interesting, because I think, you know, to your point of that, the the reality of these regulatory frameworks that, especially the ones that are continuously emerging in in fields that maybe didn't even exist 10-15 years ago, such as, you know, AI and data privacy and things of this nature, it's interesting to see, the potential benefit is a more localized sort of tailored approach, you know, based on what those particular communities face, and, you know, cultural considerations and things of this nature. But I love that point you brought up of coming together in the end as a global society to think of a way forward, especially when it comes to these very big picture issues, and, and still sort of integrating that global perspective. So yeah, I think, I think that's completely fascinating.

Meri Baghdasaryan  12:26  
No, I just wanted to add that I really hope that we can, you know, go from... you know, in the beginning, everybody was so excited about technologies. And in a way, this led to everyone also, like, not everyone, but the majority, to disregard any potential harms. And then we got into the face of tech lash and always sees more of the problems than all the possibilities and opportunities that technologies can provide. And I think my big wish is to, to go back to being excited about technologies, but also know that the harms are possible and, you know, come up with more mitigation strategies, or think through everything before going forward. So going back to what you were saying, I hope, you know, we can figure this out together. Because internet is... it's global. And I hope it will stay global. So we'll see I'm really hopeful, still.

Reema Moussa  13:32  
Yeah, absolutely. Me too. So now shifting gears a little bit. What are you working on right now? Yes.

Meri Baghdasaryan  13:46  
Wow. So yes, EFF is an exciting place. And I'm really thankful for the opportunity to spend this year working with both Eff's domestic and international teams. So being a foreign trained attorney with more international experience, I'm helping EFF have more engagement with, you know, different cases on digital rights issues before the international courts. For instance, we submitted amicus briefs in case about right to be forgotten before the European Court of Human Rights. There was another case, which basically extended the case that I mentioned, Delfi versus Estonia, the intermediary liability rules, to, you know, general any social media user, which we think is too expansive, and it's it's just gonna end up having more chilling effect on legitimate free expression rather than help fight any type of illegal content online. We recently submitted, We recently joined actually, a case an amicus brief before the European Court of Human Rights in an encryption case. So really working on a variety of different issues, but all are very important cases, and we hope the Court comes out the right way, and public interest will be preserved. I also work on the newly proposed UN cybercrime treaty, where EFF and partners are trying to make the treaty as human rights centric as possible. For instance, I was mapping the Member State positions, trying to identify any potential points of contention or any problematic, you know, proposals following the work of the UN Ad Hoc Committee and working with partners from around the world. And also in the frames of this treaty work. I, with my colleagues... we put together a blog post about the importance of excluding any content related crimes from the UN cybercrime treaty, because you know, this is treaty about criminalizing illegal behavior online, and using ICTs, if we use the UN language, and, you know, criminalization is a measure of last resort. And even if we talk about hate speech, and disinformation and any potential real life consequences that they may have, it's not so straightforward that this type of behavior needs to be criminalized, because who can define what is hate speech? Or what is disinformation? Or there are, you know, different levels for hate speech And et cetera, et cetera. So it's a very complicated issue, and we're trying to put forward EFF's position on this matter. And on the domestic side, I work on, you know, amicus briefs, for instance, one was about must carry cases, or I do research. For instance, I was comparing the right to privacy under California constitution, and the standards around it with Fourth Amendment standards, with regards to the especially with regards to the third party standing, and I was surprised to see that California, in some regards, is more privacy centric than, you know, the standards on the federal level. And I was also working on on a case during the discovery process, and as an attorney, who is who has been trained in the civil law jurisdiction, and we don't really have the rigorous discovery as you know, it exists under US law, it was fascinating to see the work and the thought process that goes through this, you know, discovery phase of litigation. So in other words, I'm, I'm doing more research, litigation related work, and also some policy, you know, work at EFF. And all of it is really interesting and really educational for me, I would say.

Reema Moussa  18:32  
Yeah, and I want to dig in there on a point you raised of the very complicated nature of a lot of your work, and especially these, you know, quite technical topics, as it pertains to perhaps cybercrime, and, you know, figuring out how to best configure encryption in a way that is, you know, beneficial to the policy framework that you're working on for surveillance or, or the like. And so, in that vein, how do you inform yourself about these? You know, very technical topics, especially with your perspective, as an attorney, what are some strategies that you use to learn about these topics as they continuously emerge?

Meri Baghdasaryan  19:36  
That's a very important question, I would say because it's not necessary. Or I would say it's not required to have a technical background to work in tech law, but it is really useful to understand the details and especially if you work in roles that you know, deal with more, you know, product related issues, then it's really beneficial to, to understand this. So my approach is usually to, you know, ask questions. One of the benefits of working at EFF is that we have a number of great technologists, and they are always ready to answer all of your questions, and review your work if it has more technical aspect to it. So this has been a great experience for me to, to see how different, the people from different backgrounds can come together. And do you know, this important work, and on on more personal side, you know, I'm currently doing a course from Harvard called Computer Science for lawyers, and actually, an instructor from the computer science department of Harvard University is explaining all the major concepts around internet from, you know, from cybersecurity to DNS, and TCP IP, and everything you can think of that sounds too threatening. But even before that, I have been selected as a next gen that ICANN program and, you know, ICANN provides you with the opportunity to dig deeper into the technical aspects of, you know, the internet, and I specifically wanted to be, you know, engaged in this space to enhance my knowledge on more technical aspects of these issues. Because that really gives you a different perspective on the policy or legal issues that you are trying to put forward. So in a nutshell, I would say, this is a field that is growing continuously, and it's, it's really growing fast. So as in any field, but especially in tech law and policy, you need to be a continuous, lifelong learner. And, you know, reading books and taking courses and talking to your colleagues, or just doing a fellowship, together with your job, I think are some avenues that people can take to gain more, you know, knowledge about the technical aspects.

Reema Moussa  22:36  
That's really great. And I love that you're still taking classes to learn about the field and get that sort of technical understanding. It's so interesting at USC, we also have a computer science for lawyers class, and now you've inspired me a bit, maybe I'll end up taking that before I graduate, that's really fantastic. And so that's a great segue into my next question. And you've mentioned your involvement with some of these different organizations or fellowships or opportunities outside of your, your main gig, so to speak, you know, from Internet Society to ICANN, you're involved with the foundry as a fellow. And I know you're also involved with the Internet Governance Forum. So yeah, it would be great to hear you speak a little to what other projects you're involved with outside of your work with EFF and what, you know, opportunities you've, you've taken advantage of.

Meri Baghdasaryan  23:49  
Yes, sure. So, first off, also, as a disclaimer, you know, I am a fellow at the internet law and policy foundry. So far, really enjoying the experience, getting to know people and doing great things together. So, a moment of advertisement: if you want to join, follow us on social media, and just email us if you have any initiatives to get involved. You also mentioned the Internet Governance Forum. To clarify, this is the Internet Governance Forum in the United States, and this year, I'm co- organizing the first-ever Youth Internet Governance Forum, or as we call it, Youth IGF USA, which will take place virtually in July. And please stay tuned to learn more about it. The registration is set to open soon. And the idea behind this event is to have youth involved in this space organize an event for other young professionals in the field who have not really engaged with internet governance, and, you know, come meet and learn more about the processes, the stakeholders and the main topics. And this will be a pre event for the IGF USA. And it will also provide a sneak peek into the program of the conference, that will be a hybrid event, the in person part taking place in DC. Other than, you know, the foundry and organizing them Youth IGF USA, I am a steering committee member for the Internet rights and principles Coalition, which is a dynamic coalition at UN Internet Governance Forum. And it is a network of individuals and organizations committed to making human rights work for the online environment. Really excited to have been elected to the steering committee and really enjoying the experience of working with my colleagues from around the world. So hopefully, we'll make interesting projects in the next two years. And in addition to all of this, previously, this year, I was coaching the University of Pennsylvania Law School's team for the Price Media Law Moot court. And the team ended up being the runner up at the Americas regional round and qualified for the International rounds. Pretty proud of the team. And, you know, media law is one of my main areas of interest and expertise, was really happy to work with the team and see them, you know, qualify for the International rounds. And I also really believe in mentorship. So I was a mentor with the Legal Mentor Network, where I had several students from various law schools, as my mentees, and we were discussing pathways to tech law and policy from, you know, non conventional backgrounds, or, you know, just getting started in this field and these type of questions. So, really enjoyed working with my mentees as well. So yeah, trying to pay forward, whenever, and whatever I can.

Reema Moussa  27:20  
that's incredible. And it's amazing that you've had all these wonderful experiences and opportunities to enrich your own learning, but also to give back to the communities that you're a part of, you know, the greater tech law and policy community, but you know, communities that you've you've been involved with, and learn from in the past. And I think that notion that you raised of mentorship, and you know, really paying it forward and staying connected, is so important. You know, as future generations cultivate their interest in this field, and it is such a quickly growing field that needs a lot of talent and a lot of great minds working together to solve some of Tech's biggest problems. So I think that's amazing. And kind of on that note, do you have any recommendations or advice for, you know, perhaps students, the youth who might be interested in following in your footsteps one day and having a career that's as enriched and really full with experience in tackling these interesting topics as yours?

Meri Baghdasaryan  28:50  
Well, as I said, I really believe in being a lifelong learner and also believe in mentorship. So I would say - Never stop learning, seek out opportunities. ICANN fellowships or the NextGen program are a great way to get involved in this space and learn more about the technical aspects, try to look out for the Internet society's Youth Ambassadors Program. I think the deadline is sometime this month. So try to apply to that, and they have that every year. You can take a lot of online courses to be more versed in the issues that are in discussion right now or, you know, learn about the stakeholders out there. You know, join the foundry, of course, attend the events. Just send us an email if you have any thoughts. And in terms of mentorships, I think a lot of people are really open to share their experiences, and give you some advice based on where you are in your career. So, I would be also happy to chat with anyone who has any questions or needs a sounding board. In general, I think it's important to, to be open to opportunities, but also know what you want. But also, you know, to know that you need to try. So don't be afraid to try and also be fine with the fact that you may try something and you may not like it. Or you may discover something new. So for instance, for me, it was intellectual property law, I never thought that I might enjoy that. But it turns out, I do. So you know, that opens up new opportunities and new areas to explore, which is fascinating, I think. And in general, I would say, just, you know, try to build your community, definitely network a lot, as much as you can. And never stop learning. And I'm sure, you know, everything will work out. So yeah, I don't know if my rambling was useful. But hopefully, people can find some nuggets there that may resonate with them.

Reema Moussa  31:24  
No, I know, it definitely resonates with me. And I think that that is is great advice. So Meri, what's next for you?

Meri Baghdasaryan  31:36  
Oh, yeah, so this question has no specific answer. And I think that also resonates with another favorite expression of mine, which is, we are all work in progress. So, you know, my fellowship at EFF is coming to an end in a couple of months. And I'm actively seeking my next role, and really excited about this journey and excited to see how it unfolds. But as I said, you know, I started with focusing only on free speech and privacy. And then I discovered that I also like, you know, intellectual property, and all these issues together. So there was a time when I was really pushing myself to figure it out. So which one is the one, you know? But then I realized that that's not mandatory. So there are ways to combine them all. And, you know, I'm trying to be open, as I said, and hopefully, I will find that my next role will be the one that encompasses all of my interests and expertise. So I will update you once I have more specific answers about the next steps.

Reema Moussa  32:57  
That's really exciting. And I'm really excited for you. And yeah, if our listeners want to keep up with you and your you know, journey and your work, where can they find you?

Meri Baghdasaryan  33:14  
I'm on LinkedIn and Twitter, feel free to also send me an email. I will share my email with Reema. If you have any questions or want to chat, happy to set up time to meet and talk tech law and policy and human rights and IP and anything else you're interested.

Reema Moussa  33:38  
Great. Well, thank you so much, Meri, for taking the time to chat today. It was amazing to hear all about your your varied experiences and how truly interesting your career path has been. So looking forward to seeing what's next for you. And of course, collaborating here at the foundry as as we do.

Meri Baghdasaryan  34:03  
Thanks so much, Reema, for listening to my journey. And yeah, looking forward to working together.

Reema Moussa  34:11  
Thanks for listening to this episode of The Tech policy grind podcast by the Internet law and policy Foundry. Be sure to check out the foundry on LinkedIn and Twitter. If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review and give us a five star rating. It really helps out the show. If you're interested in supporting the show, reach out to us at Foundry podcast at ILP foundry.us. You can find our email in the show notes as well as. The tech policy grind podcast comes out every other Thursday. See you next time.

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