I’ve spent three decades designing and tweaking constitutional frameworks for emerging democracies—across multiple continents. I’ve been a professor at Harvard University, the University of Oxford, King’s College London, and the University of Bologna. I’ve advised governments and policy makers on many aspects of constitutional design, directly and through organisations such as the UN and the Club of Madrid. Constitutional frameworks might be necessary, but are they ever sufficient? This question is increasingly relevant as we grapple with governing transformative AI.

​

My recent book Outlaw: Six Lessons for a Brave New World (Bloomsbury: 2025),argues that we can’t rely on rules alone, even expertly designed ones. We need active, horizontal citizenship and deliberative democratic participation. This applies directly to AI governance, where technical solutions and regulatory frameworks face similar limitations to those I’ve observed in political systems across the globe.

​

​I’m now exploring how principles from constitutional design apply to AI system governance—questions of legitimacy, accountability, democratic participation, and the gap between formal rules and actual outcomes.