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Julia Hörnle, LLB (Leeds), PhD (London), Solicitor, MCIArb

Julia

Professor of Internet Law

Email: j.hornle@qmul.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7882 8064
Room Number: Lincoln's Inn Fields

Profile

Professor Julia Hörnle has held the Chair of Internet Law at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary, University of London since 2013.

Her research areas are Cyberspace Law & Digital Rights, Internet Regulation, Jurisdiction of States Online and Online Dispute Resolution. She examines from a critical-analytical perspective the law related to the internet, cloud computing, social media and artificial intelligence. Recent research focuses on the regulation of social media, the liability of intermediaries for user-generated content, and the use of artificial intelligence for content moderation online.

She has held visiting research and teaching positions at the at the Max Planck Institute for International and Comparative Criminal Law, at the Institute for Telecommunications and Media Law, University of Münster, at the European University Institute, Singapore Management University, the National University of Singapore and Georgetown University Washington DC.

She was educated at the University of Göttingen, the University of Leeds (1995) and the University of Hamburg, Germany (1996). She trained with the lawfirm of Eversheds in London and Brussels and qualified as a solicitor in 1999. She gained a University of London PhD in 2008 with a thesis on Online Dispute Resolution which was published as a book, Cross-border Internet Dispute Resolution by Cambridge University Press in 2009.

Professor Hörnle has chartered the jurisdictional challenges of the internet in her ground-breaking new book published by Oxford University Press in February 2021: Internet Jurisdiction Law & Practice.

Professor Hörnle’s research has been impactful: the research on ODR led to impact on the UK government, UNCITRAL, the Council of Europe (European Committee on Legal Co-operation (CDCJ)) and the European Commission on ODR, leading to a Directive on ADR and a Regulation on ODR. The ODR Research was submitted as an Impact Case Study in the REF 2014 receiving the highest impact score (4*).

Her book Cross-border Online Gambling Law & Practice (Edward Elgar 2010) and subsequent research on the regulation of online gambling has led to a 2018 European Commission Study leading to her Impact Case Study for the REF 2021.

Postgraduate Teaching

Research

Featured research

Research grants

  • EUROPEAN COMMISSION- Multi-disciplinary Study on Online Gambling Regulation (January-December 2018)
  • German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)- Internet Jurisdiction and Choice of Law in Privacy & Defamation Cases- Comparing Germany and England- Research Grant for Research Stay at Münster University (September 2017)
  • Max Planck Gesellschaft Research Grant for Research on Criminal Jurisdiction- Stay at MPI in Freiburg (2018)
  • Council of Europe Technical Study on Online Dispute Resolution (2016-2018)
  • Government of Singapore, Attorney General’s Chambers, Teaching Grant for Specialist Course on Digital Investigations & Cybercrime Legal Frameworks (2015)
  • UK Government (Department of Business Innovation & Skills) Research Report on Consumer Demand for ADR/ODR (Empirical Work on Stakeholder Views) (2012)
  • European Commission Technical Study in Preparation of the Drafts for a Directive on ADR for Consumer Disputes 2013/11/EC and ODR Regulation EU/524/2013 (2011-2012)
  • Responsible Gambling Fund Research Funding for a PhD Scholarship with the title “Children and Online Gambling- Attitudes, Behaviour, Harm, Prevention, Educational and Regulatory Responses” (2011), carried out under my supervision by Margaret Carran (2011-2014) and resulting in her 2018 book
  • UK Government (Department of Business Innovation & Skills) International & Comparative Study for the 2010 White Paper on the Reform of Consumer Enforcement (2009)

Publications

Books

Journals, peer-reviewed

  • “The Role of Social Media Companies in the Regulation of Online Hate Speech” (2021) 85 Studies in Law, Politics and Society (with Chara Bakalis) 75-100
  • “The Conundrum of Internet Jurisdiction and How US Law Has Influenced the Jurisdiction Analysis In India” (2020) 14 (2) Indian Journal of Law and Information Technology 183-211
  • “Preventing risks from illegal online gambling using effective legal design on landing pages” (2019) 7 (1) Journal of Open Access to Law 1-22
  • “Regulating Online Advertising for Gambling- Once the Genie is out of the Bottle…” (2019) 28 (3) Information and Communications Technology Law 311-334 (with other authors)
  • “Juggling More Than Three Balls At Once: Multi-level Jurisdictional Challenges in EU Data Protection Regulation” (2019) 27 (2) International Journal of Law and Information Technology 142-170
  • “A Sieve that Does Hold a Little Water - Gambling Advertising and Protection of the Vulnerable in the UK” (2018) 38 (4) Legal Studies 529-548 (with Margaret Carran)
  • “Global social media vs local values: Private international law should protect local consumer rights by using the public policy exception?” (2018) 34 (2) Computer Law and Security Review 391-397
  • 'Encouraging Online Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in the EU and Beyond’ (2013) 38 (2) European Law Review 187-209 Cited by 10
  • ‘Data Protection Jurisdiction and Cloud Computing –When are Cloud Users and Providers Subject to EU Data Protection Law?’ (with W Kuan Hon and C Millard) (2012) 26 (2) International Review of Law, Computers and Technology 129-164.
  • ‘Online Gambling in the European Union: a Tug of War without a Winner?’ in (2011) 30 (1) Yearbook of European Law (OUP) 255-297
  • ‘Countering the Dangers of Online Pornography- shrewd regulation of lewd content?’ (2011) 2 (1) European Journal of Law and Information Technology 1-26

Shorter Academic Articles

  • OUP Blog “The Jurisdictional Challenge of Internet Regulation” (24 March 2021)
  • ‘EU-Kommissionsstudie zur Durchsetzung von Online-Glücksspielregulierung: Kanalisierung des Spielbetriebs hin zu kontrollierten Angeboten’ (2019) ZfWG 1-9 (with Maria Schmidt-Kessen)
  • ‘Evaluation of Regulatory Tools for Enforcing Online Gambling Rules and Channelling Demand Towards Controlled Offers: An Overview of the Report Completed for the European Commission’ (2019) 6 Gaming Law Review 1-10 (with Alan Littler)
  • ‘Online Gambling: Children among Easy Prey for Advertisers who Face Few Sanctions’ The Conversation 12 June 2019
  • ‘European Court of Human Rights on Finding the Right Balance in Respect of Employer Email Monitoring – An Opportunity Missed!’ Spring 2017 14 (1) SCRIPTED 100-112
  • OUP Blog “Just a Face in the Crowd” (with Niloufer Selvadurai- 19 June 2015)

 

Supervision

PhD supervision

  • Michaela MacDonald “The Case for Virtual Property” (2011-2015)
  • Margaret Carran “Children and Gambling: Attitudes, Behaviour, Harm Prevention and Regulatory Responses” (2011-2015)
  • Stephan Buck “Virtual Worlds, Copyright and Virtual Property Rights” (part-time 2010-2016)
  • Eranjan Padumadasa “How and Why the Cookie Crumbles- Negotiating Online Privacy” (2013-2017)
  • Elif Mendos Kuskonmaz “Reviewing the Compatibility of EU-US Passenger Name Records Agreement with the Right to Privacy and Data Protection” (2015-2018)
  • Peter Michael Kalule “Incitement to Terror: From a UK Perspective” (2016-2019)
  • Rachel Alkaley “Online Intermediaries and Copyright Liability” (2016-2020)
  • Jessica Shurson “Foreign Service Providers and Extraterritorial Access to Data by Law Enforcement” (2018-
  • Dave Michels “Property Rights in Digital Assets- A Little Plot of Cyberspace” (2019-
  • Jingxi Liu “Gender Bias in Artificial Intelligence in the Employment Context” (2020-
  • Zoe Asser “The Constancy of Image Based Sexual Abuse: Assessing the impact of Intermediary liability on the removal of IBSA online. A Study of IBSA content removal in England & Wales and South Korea” (2020-

Public Engagement

Professor Hörnle contributed to the comparative analysis of the Law Commission’s Scoping Report on Abusive and Offensive Online Communications investigating criminal offences in respect of hateful speech (2018).

She was a non-executive Director of the Authority for TV on Demand (ATVOD) 2010-2014 applying critical and sound judgment to questions on how to regulate online pornography.

She was an Expert in the Committee of Intermediary & Platform Liability of the Media & Internet Division of the Council of Europe (2016-18) producing a Study on AI and a Council of Ministers Recommendation on hateful speech online. In a separate Council of Europe project (2015-2019) she has led three researchers producing a Technical Study on Online Dispute Resolution.

Professor Hörnle has acted as principal investigator in a number of publicly funded research projects managing a number of researchers. Most recently for the European Commission, leading a team of five researchers producing a multi-disciplinary Study on the challenges of enforcing national gambling regulation in the EU and EEA States, focusing on internet access blocking, payment blocking, advertising regulation and sanctions and advising a number of gambling regulators across the EU on enforcement issues. The quality of the research resulted in an invitation to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Social and Economic Impact of the Gambling Industry to give oral and written evidence (2019).

Professor Hörnle has appeared on TV (most recently twice on the panel of The Roundtable, TRT “Policing the Internet: Who Should Do It?” March 2020 and “Policing the Internet: Is the UK Playing Politics with Internet Freedoms?” July 2021) and on national radio Radio 4’s Law in Action (2013) and Woman’s Hour (2013) and BBC Digital Planet (2021).

She was an invited expert on ODR to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law for the Working Group III, at the Inaugural Session in Vienna 2010 and New York, 24-28 March 2014. In 2014-2015 she acted as member of the Advisory Group on Online Dispute Resolution of the English Court Service’s Civil Justice Council.

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