Southeast Asia x Security x Tech policy
Southeast Asia x Security x Tech policy
At this 25th anniversary celebration of the Stanford Southeast Asia Program, I'll be speaking on, "Geopolitics and US policy in Southeast Asia", 16 May 2024
In the South China Morning Post, 2 May 2024: https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3260902/southeast-asia-cannot-be-bystander-amid-escalating-global-crises
Co-authored with Aubra Anthony, Lakshmee Vinaya Sharma, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 30 April 2024: https://carnegieendowment.org/2024/04/30/advancing-more-global-agenda-for-trustworthy-artificial-intelligence-pub-92342
"Humanity at the crossroads: Autonomous weapons systems and the challenge of regulation," Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, Vienna, 29-30 April 2024: https://www.bmeia.gv.at/en/european-foreign-policy/disarmament/conventional-arms/autonomous-weapons-systems/2024-vienna-conference-on-autonomous-weapons-systems
Recording https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju9fvM6pAS0
Photo credit: @BMEIA/Michael Gruber
Organized by Stanford University's Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Policy Center, this event explored developments in AI policy in both global minority and global majority countries.
I spoke on ASEAN's role and gaps in thinking/policy-making in the region in the panel on, "Multilateral Convergence: International Organizations in Action".
https://hai.stanford.edu/aipolicy-symposium-global-stocktaking-agenda
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx6g-B1Hdf4
Photo credit: @Stanford HAI
Virtual briefing to the Working Group on the issue of digital technologies in the context of international security.
I spoke about the changing landscape of security; the role of new actors, in particular the private sector; as well as their implications for countries especially non-major powers.
So pleased and honored to serve on this advisory board at a time when multilateralism and its institutions are being challenged or undermined, and when advances in science and tech are extending the trajectory of impact on human security in very different ways.
Over the next two years, alongside a formidable, diverse group of colleagues and an excellent team at UNIDIR and UNODA, we'll focus on international peace and security risks emanating from science/tech advances. We began our first meeting with an intense strategic foresight exercise that pushed many of us beyond our comfort zones. Hopefully, we'll be able to do some of our own envelope-pushing within the UN system.
More:
Elina Noor is a senior fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where she focuses on developments in Southeast Asia, particularly the impact and implications of technology in reshaping power dynamics, governance, and nation-building in the region.
Previously, Elina was director of political-security affairs and deputy director of the Washington, D.C. office at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Prior to that, Elina was an associate professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. She spent most of her career at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia, where she last held the position of director, foreign policy and security studies. Elina was also formerly with the Brookings Institution’s Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World.
Between 2017 and 2019, Elina was part of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace. From 2021 to 2023, she served on the International Committee of the Red Cross Global Advisory Board on digital threats during conflict. She currently serves on the United Nations Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters.
Elina read law at Oxford University. She obtained an LL.M (Public International Law) from the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, graduating with distinction at the top of her class. A recipient of the Perdana (Malaysian Prime Minister’s) Fellowship, she also holds an MA in security studies from Georgetown University, where she was a Women in International Security Scholar.
"Southeast Asia cannot be a mere bystander amid escalating global crises," South China Morning Post, 2 May 2024.
"Advancing a more global agenda for trustworthy artificial intelligence," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 30 April 2024.
"In embracing AI, Southeast Asia must consider sobering climate costs," South China Morning Post, 2 April 2024.
"Emergent technologies and great power competition: Implications for ASEAN," Counterpoint Southeast Asia #10, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, 28 March 2024.
"Southeast Asia's digital future should be more than replicas of the past," South China Morning Post, 1 March 2024.
"Malaysia: Focused implementation is key to realizing potential," in Korea's path to digital leadership, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 28 February 2024.
"Entangled: Southeast Asia and the geopolitics of undersea cables," Indo-Pacific Outlook, Vol. 1, Issue 5, Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, 7 February 2024.
"The cyber domain in the South China Sea," In Forum: 2024 - The South China Sea at a Crossroads, 9Dashline, 2 February 2024.
"ASEAN, China must address cyber threats in South China Sea talks," South China Morning Post, 30 January 2024.
"Indonesia in the emerging world order," (with Christopher Chivvis and Beatrix Geaghan-Breiner) Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 9 November 2023.
"No Biden, no problem: ASEAN just has to forge its own path," South China Morning Post, 31 August 2023.
Fair winds and following seas: Maritime security and hedging in the South China Sea, (with Hunter Marston, Bich Tran, Richard Javad Heydarian) Blue Security: A Maritime Affairs Series 3: 2023, August 2023.
"Southeast Asia and the China-US fight for tech supremacy," Asia Global Online, 16 March 2023.
Risks, recruits, and plots: Understanding and mitigating the influence of the Islamic State in Malaysia, (with Amira Jadoon, Nakissa Jahanbani, Marley Carroll, William Frangia) Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, 15 August 2022.
Raising Standards: Data and artificial intelligence in Southeast Asia, Asia Society Policy Institute, July 2022.
"Engage Myanmar but suspend from ASEAN," The Jakarta Post, 13 April 2021.
The South China Sea: Realities and responses, Asia Society Policy Institute, December 2021.
"ASEAN can shape its digital order," The Indo-Pacific operating system: How can America shore up the regional order? Lowy Institute, 2021.
"Positioning ASEAN in cyberspace," in "Roundtable: The future of cybersecurity across the Asia-Pacific," Asia Policy, National Bureau of Asian Research, April 2020, 107-114.
What place for Europe in the Indo-Pacific? Europe Inside Out, 11 October 2023.
Elina Noor talks cybersecurity in the age of TikTok and AI, She Talks Peace, 27 May 2023.
Getting Southeast Asia right (with Hunter Marston, Evan Laksmana, Sebastian Strangio, The un-Diplomatic Podcast, 17 January 2023.
Ethics, digital technologies, and AI: Southeast Asian perspectives, Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, 6 September 2022.
S.E. Asia and the U.S./China balance of power, Polaris Live, 27 February 2024.
Prime minister of Malaysia's inaugural UNGA address, Astro Awani, 22 September 2023.
Nuances of digital connectivity in Southeast Asia, Facts Talk Podcast, 24 August 2023.
Rappler Talk: Manila turns to Washington, What now? Rappler, 12 May 2023.
Ken Moriyasu and Ramon Royandoyan, "First US-Japan-Philippines trilateral to address China's 'gray zone' tactics," Nikkei Asia, 1 April 2024.
Fiona Kelliher, "China data leak spotlights cyber-spying across Southeast Asia," Nikkei Asia, 1 March 2024.
Prime Sarmiento, "ASEAN publishes guide on AI governance," China Daily, 5 February 2024, https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202402/05/WS65c03ff4a3104efcbdae9b40.html
Between the Binary is a limited series podcast highlighting the priorities, prospects, and challenges of technology in the Global South through the voices of experts in and from the Global South. It was curated during my time as John H. McArthur Research Fellow with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada in 2022.
'Between the Binary' is a play on three concepts in the digital age: of societies that either fit within or straddle the Global South/Global North divide (defined here to refer to developed countries geographically located in the southern hemisphere or marginalized peoples in high-income economies north of the equator); of stakeholders in a landscape increasingly underwritten by the binary code of 1s and 0s.; and, of countries caught in the middle of a trending technological rupture.
By 2100, more than 90 per cent of the world’s population is projected to live outside Europe and North America. Most will live in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, presenting substantial market opportunities. Yet current deliberations on technology inadequately address the needs and aspirations of this majority – let alone how stakeholders in these parts of the world should be able to determine the way tech impacts their lives. If a large part of the future lies with the people of Asia and Africa, it seems only fair to expect the governance structures – the norms, rules, and international legal frameworks – of technology to reflect the perspectives, expectations, and value-systems of the world’s majority.
'Between the Binary' seeks to amplify the viewpoints of this majority by unpacking technology’s intersections with history, gender, power, the economy, and behavioural psychology with a mix of established and next-generation guests from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands, and North America. Through these conversations, this podcast aims to improve understanding of the prospects and challenges of digitalization and equity in the Global South, as well as identify areas of convergence and co-operation within the Global South and with the Global North.
*Here, the term Global South refers to developing countries, most of which are geographically located in the southern hemisphere. However, it also takes a more expansive conception of the term – as outlined by Chinmayi Arun – to include disenfranchised communities living both in “Southern” countries but also in economically developed countries in the “North”. This interpretation would account for, for example, indigenous populations in both “Southern” and “Northern” countries but also other stakeholders who have had to resist marginalization, oppression, and/or injustice.
Listen to a range of expert voices from Aotearoa and Brazil to South Africa and the Caribbean on what tech priorities, challenges, and innovations look like in the majority world.
Convened by the Austrian ministry of foreign affairs, this conference geographically and topically broadened the discussion on an issue usually confined to a narrow, technical scope among the usual suspects from global minority states. Over 100 countries and 900+ participants were in attendance.
In the scene-setting panel I had the privilege of sharing with Agnes Callamard, Beyza Unal, Jimena Viveros, and Franz-Stefan Gady, I stressed the relativity of security (security for whom?), the relationally of AWS (to human beings, to the past and the future, and to other systems), as well as the sanctity of human dignity above the efficiency/optimisation of the so-called kill chain.
Panel recording from around 4;39:00-6:00:00.
Organized by Stanford University's Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Policy Center, this event explored developments in AI policy in both global minority and global majority countries.
I spoke on ASEAN's role and gaps in thinking/policy-making in the region in the panel on, "Multilateral Convergence: International Organizations in Action". Session recording from around 5:20:00 mark to 5:58:00.
On February 14, 2024, over 200 million registered Indonesian voters will have the opportunity to vote in the country’s general election. With new leadership at stake, three presidential and vice-presidential pairs are vying for the country’s highest offices: Anies Baswedan and Muhaimin Iskandar, Ganjar Pranowo and Mahfud MD, and Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka.
What do these candidates and their platforms mean for Indonesia’s democratic trajectory, political stability, and economic future? Will President Joko Widodo’s mega-plans such as the new capital, Nusantara, falter or advance under the next administration? How will Southeast Asia’s largest nation balance industrial growth, sustainability, and social equity? What will Jakarta’s—or Nusantara’s—foreign policy look like as strategic tensions simmer in the region and globally?
A month before Indonesia voted, Carnegie’s Asia Program held this timely discussion with Sana Jaffrey, Mega Valentina, Philips Vermonte, and Elina Noor.
In September 2023, Thailand’s new government was sworn in four months after the country went to the polls. Despite the Move Forward Party’s strong mandate from the Thai electorate, with the most votes and seats in parliament, it was the Pheu Thai Party that eventually succeeded in forming a coalition government. What will political fault lines in Thailand mean for the country as it navigates global economic headwinds and strategic tensions? Will democratic checks and balances at home lead to a more engaged Thailand, regionally and internationally?
Join Elina Noor as she discusses these and other issues with Pita Limjaroenrat, the Move Forward Party’s prime ministerial candidate and chief advisor.
This follows the morning address delivered by Secretary-General Puna at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's third annual Indo-Pacific Islands Dialogue, New York, 18 September 2023.
As the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific continues to be focused on interactions between larger players, there remains a significant gap in understanding how small states influence and shape global politics. A leader in advocating climate change and mitigation, as well as its presence at multilateral institutions, the Maldives provides a unique insight into the role small states play in global developments including on multilateral treaties, agreements and establishing norms and rules.
Member, Artificial Intelligence and Equality Initiative Advisory Board