My PhD dissertation, Ruling the Cloud: A Critique of International Cyber Law, offers the first sustained Marxist critique of international law in the digital era. Bringing Marxist legal theory into conversation with critical technology studies and critical security studies, the dissertation unravels how international law takes shape to protect and expand a digital landscape designed for profit in Silicon Valley and beyond, while making life increasingly uncertain for the working class and fueling ecological crises.

You can download a digital copy of the dissertation here:

I am currently rewriting the central insights of the thesis into a book, to be published with Bill in the Historical Materialism book series. The book has the tentative title: Ruling the Cloud: How International Law Sustains Capitalism in the Digital Age. 

In a globalized world, the market economy and its ecological consequences extend beyond national borders, while international law remains rooted in the idea of fixed territories. My current research project, Borders and Boundlessness: A Critical Geography of International Law in Global Capitalism, explores the apparent paradox in international law between these two forces: The fixed territorial boundaries of states and capitalism’s boundless strive for expansion.

As the market economy is fueling both the ecological crisis and a deepening global inequality, it is crucial to understand if international law can effectively address these urgent challenges of our time, or if international law is rather enabling them. This requires that we understand how the power of territorial states and global corporations correlate.

The research project is carried out at the University of Gothenburg and is made possible with generous support by the Carlsberg Foundation.