Academic Staff
Marcelo Thompson
Research Assistant Professor
Marcelo Thompson is a Research Assistant Professor in Law and Information Technology at HKU, where he teaches "Regulation of Cyberspace" and co-teaches "Privacy and Data Protection". Marcelo is finishing his DPhil thesis at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, on the idea of neutrality in technology law and politics. During the past years, Marcelo has been in receipt of a full doctorate scholarship from The CAPES Foundation, of the Brazilian Ministry of Education, for which he was ranked 1st place, nationally, in the area of Law.
Marcelo holds an LLM (Law and Technology) from the University of Ottawa, where he wrote his major research paper on copyright reform and the human right of access to knowledge. His LLB was concluded at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), from where he also holds a PgDip in Intellectual Property Law. From May to June 2008 Marcelo was an Alcatel-Lucent Foundation Visiting Fellow at the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research, University of Hamburg. Marcelo has given lectures and spoken in conferences in Brazil, Canada, Chile, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Prior to returning to academia, Marcelo was the Attorney General of the Brazilian Information Technology Institute - ITI, under the Office of the President of Brazil (2004-2005), where he headed the legal team in charge of both the Brazilian Free Software Programme and the Brazilian Public Key Infrastructure. From 2002 to 2004 Marcelo was the Head of the Department of Litigation (2003-2004) and an Attorney within the Venture Capital division (2002-2003) of the Brazilian Innovation Agency - FINEP, under the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology. While working for FINEP, Marcelo was a Part-Time Professor of Information Technology Law at his alma mater, PUC-Rio (2002-2003). Marcelo started his professional career in 1998, practicing as a law clerk (1998-2000) and later as a lawyer (2001) with Prof Gilberto Martins de Almeida, from PUC-Rio.
Research Interests
Internet Governance
Jurisprudence and Political Theory
Personal Identity and Authentication
Privacy and Data Protection
Copyright and Access to Knowledge
Brazilian Law
Selected Publications
Identity, Capacity and Totality: Rethinking the Boundaries of Personhood in Brazil(2009) 3 poliTICs 25 [in Portuguese].
"The Northern European Subset: A Cross-Border Platform for Electronic Public Procurement" (2008) 4 Public Procurement Law Review 175 [Westlaw]
with Mary Rundle, Bob Blakley, Jeff Broberg, Tony Nadalin, Dale Olds, Mary Ruddy and Paul Trevithick (2007) At a Crossroads: Personhood and Digital Identity in the Information Society. OECD, Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry, Working Paper DSTI/DOC(2007)7.
Property Enforcement or Retrogressive Measure? Copyright Reform in Canada and the Human Right of Access to Knowledge (2007) 4:1 University of Ottawa Law & Technology Journal [accepted; forthcoming].
The Democracy of FLOSS: Software Procurement Under the Democratic Principle (2007) 4:2 University of Ottawa Law & Technology Journal [accepted; forthcoming].
with Sergio Vieira Branco Jr. Forewords to Joaquim Falcão, Ronaldo Lemos, and Tercio Sampaio Ferraz Junior "Free Software Law and Public Administration" (Rio de Janeiro: Lumen Juris, 2007) [in Portuguese: "Direito do Software Livre e a Administração Pública"].
Taxation of Information Technology Services (2003) 1 Tax Magazine of the City of Rio de Janeiro [in Portuguese].
