Workshop: How Should the Law Treat Future AI Systems? Fictional Legal Personhood versus Legal Identity
03/26/2026 • 12:30
Salle A-9445, Pavillon Maximilien-Caron, UdeM
The Cyberjustice Laboratory invites you to attend the workshop “How Should the Law Treat Future AI Systems? Fictional Legal Personhood versus Legal Identity,” in the form of a discussion between Dr. Heather Alexander, Prof. Jonathan Simon, and Mr Frédéric Pinard.
Please note that due to limited capacity, registration is mandatory to attend this event.
📅 Thursday, March 26 at 12:30
👥 In person only
💬 In English
📍 Salle A-9445
Université de Montréal
Pavillon Maximilien-Caron
3101 Chemin de la Tour, Montréal QC H3T 1N8
Speakers
Dr. Heather Alexander
Heather Alexander is the Co-Director of the Lab for the Future of Citizenship and an expert on nationality law, citizenship, statelessness and human rights. Her current work focuses on the intersection between citizenship law, legal identity and the person-like qualities of artificial intelligence.
She has a JD from Golden Gate University and a PhD in international law from Tilburg University, as well as fifteen years of experience as an expert consultant with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Carleton University, the University of Melbourne, the European University Institute and the US State Department. She has worked in Canada, Côte d’Ivoire, Australia, Chad, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, Gabon and the United States. She began her career as an asylum lawyer with UNHCR and is a former US Peace Corps Volunteer. Her book, The Nationality and Statelessness of Nomadic Peoples Under International Law (OUP 2025) is the first global analysis of the right to a nationality for nomadic peoples.
Heather was a founding board member of United Stateless, an advocacy network for stateless people in the US, and a former board member of the Canadian Centre on Statelessness. She has been a member in good standing of the District of Columbia Bar Association since 2006.
Pr. Jonathan Simon
Jonathan Simon is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the Université de Montréal (UdeM) and the co-director of the Laboratory for the Future of Citizenship. He is also an affiliate of the Centre de Recherche en Ethique (CRE), the Groupe de Recherche Interuniversitaire sur la Normativité (GRIN), the NYU Global Institute for Advanced Study Project on Space, Time and Consciousness, and the Canadian Metaphysics Collaborative.
Mr Frédéric Pinard
Frédéric Pinard is a Master’s student in philosophy at the University of Montreal under the supervision of Prof. Jonathan Simon. He is also a lawyer specialising in cyberjustice, technology, and artificial intelligence, and his practice focuses on the rise of new technologies in the digitisation of judicial processes and access to justice. Frédéric also holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA). His academic interests include artificial intelligence (studied from a philosophical and legal perspective), ethics, governance, and international law. He has worked with various professors of philosophy and law as a research assistant and is currently exploring issues related to the metaphysics of the person and the potential attribution of rights to advanced robotic agents, questioning their capacity to act and their legal status (both as objects and subjects of law).
Based on the following article
This content has been updated on 03/09/2026 at 16 h 29 min.