Indian Journal of Law and Technology: Special Issue on "Global South Perspectives on Technology Regulation"
The Indian Journal of Law and Technology (IJLT) is an open-access, peer-reviewed, student-run journal published annually by the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru. Established in 2005, IJLT was the first journal in India dedicated exclusively to the analysis of the relationship between law and technology. Over the past two decades, it has provided a sustained forum for research on technology regulation, encompassing themes such as data governance, intellectual property, platform regulation, information security, algorithmic accountability, artificial intelligence regulation, and the broader implications of digitalisation across areas of law.
In 2025, IJLT completes twenty years since its founding. To commemorate this occasion, the journal seeks to publish a Special Issue for Volume 21(2) that reflects upon its trajectory and its position as a technology-focused journal located within the Global South, specifically, on the theme of Global South Perspectives on Technology Regulation. The Special Issue is conceived as an opportunity to articulate a set of contemporary policy concerns that emerge, in distinctive ways, from contexts in the Global South and countries at the periphery of developing technologies, particularly in light of recent developments in the realm of technology.
Our Vision for Volume 21(2):
Our vision for Volume 21(2) seeks to foreground the policy and empirical questions that arise when legal and regulatory frameworks for technology that are often developed in, and for, jurisdictions in the Global North encounter markedly different institutional environments, developmental priorities, and constitutional histories. Technology regulation in the Global South frequently unfolds under peculiar conditions of uneven state capacity, rapid digitalisation, infrastructural heterogeneity, linguistic plurality, and persistent socioeconomic inequality. These conditions both constrain and shape regulatory choices, and they require conceptual frameworks that are attentive to context rather than premised on universal assumptions.
At the same time, the Global South has been a site of considerable regulatory innovation. The emergence of large-scale digital public infrastructures, identity and welfare platforms, novel approaches to data sharing, and distinct institutional arrangements for platform governance demonstrate that regulatory responses are neither derivative nor merely reactive. Instead, they frequently embody alternative logics that reflect domestic commitments and priorities, political economies, and societal needs. In the recent past, these developments have generated new questions across realms of law. The role of regulation also becomes increasingly relevant with the building of innovative capacity in the Global South: what concerns must countries contend with in order to regulate these new technologies across areas, and how does this tie into state power itself?
In light of these developments, this Special Issue of IJLT aims to encourage scholarship that is attentive to the particularities of Southern experience, while remaining in dialogue with global debates. The issue seeks to interrogate how technologies are adopted, contested, and regulated within the global south; how legal institutions respond to technological change; and how Southern contexts illuminate the limits of existing regulatory paradigms. In doing so, the issue aspires to contribute to an emerging body of work that approaches technology regulation as historically situated, mediated, and shaped by the material and normative conditions of the Global South.
Submission Categories:
- Articles (5000-12000 words).
- Essays (3000-5000 words).
- Case Notes, Legislative Comments, Book/Article Reviews (2000-5000 words).
Indicative Sub-Themes:
We seek to cover themes including, but not limited to, the following, and we encourage Authors to advance related or novel lines of inquiry:
- Investigating how large-scale digital systems are designed, governed, and contested in the Global South, and assessing their implications for access, exclusion, and institutional accountability;
- Examining how artificial intelligence and automated systems are being incorporated into administrative, regulatory, and adjudicatory processes, including questions of transparency, error, discrimination, and the challenges of building capacity around these tools.
- Assessing emerging approaches to data governance, including collective and community models, public-interest data sharing, state stewardship, and analysing their consequences for autonomy, privacy, and innovation.
- Exploring the regulation of digital platforms and intermediaries, with attention to market power, interoperability, content moderation, gig work, and the interface between platforms and informal economies.
- Analysing the growth of surveillance and security technologies and evaluating how courts, legislatures, and regulators respond to concerns involving rights, discrimination, and state power.
- Evaluating the environmental and material dimensions of technological systems, including waste, sustainability, supply chains, energy use, resource extraction, and the governance of climate-related technologies.
- Examining transnational interactions in technology regulation, including regional alliances, standards-setting, digital trade, and forms of South-South cooperation and comparison.
The Special Issue will include both invited as well as submitted contributions and aims to reflect a diversity of intellectual, regional, and disciplinary perspectives. We cordially invite individuals from diverse areas of study to be part of, and provide their own contributions to this Special Issue. We particularly encourage and welcome interdisciplinary work.
Submission Guidelines:
https://repository.nls.ac.in/ijlt/policies.html
Submissions Portal:
https://tinyurl.com/4zcxuj2r
Deadline:
The last date for submission of manuscripts is 31st January, 2026.
Contact:
Email: ijltedit@gmail.com
