Dr. Randall Stephenson, LL.M. (Columbia), M.St., D.Phil. (Oxon)
Main Focus
Dr. Stephenson's comparative research at the Department of Public Law examines the impact of the Internet and digital communications on networked accountability dynamics in contemporary democracies. His principal research project, Democracy and State Secrets: Calibrating Public Accountability in Modern Intelligence Gathering, examines whether mass 'full-take' information surveillance (and its legal authorisation) is consistent with established principles of self-governance, including theories of separation of powers, judicial review, and democratic accountability.
Curriculum Vitae
Randall Stephenson is a comparative public law and defamation scholar specialising in the intersections between press freedom, democratic theory, and networked accountability dynamics. After obtaining his MSt and DPhil at the University of Oxford (the latter awarded without revisions or corrections), his doctoral thesis was published by a leading academic issuer. A Crisis of Democratic Accountability: Public Libel Law and the Checking Function of the Press (Oxford: Hart 2018) examines the modern rise of public interest/political speech defences in libel law. It argues that the law and legal approaches in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States are undertheorised, lack adequate criteria for determining suitable doctrinal approaches, and require a more precise understanding of ‘democracy’, ‘representation’, and ‘accountability’. The book’s interdisciplinary law reforms incorporate innovative advances in public accountability scholarship, recommending jurisdictions adjust their pubic libel doctrine to match their unique accountability profile and institutional networks. Dr Stephenson’s legal scholarship has since been published in The Modern Law Review, the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, and the Osgoode Hall Law Journal. Before attending Oxford, Dr Stephenson practiced litigation as a senior associate at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, a leading business law firm in Toronto, Canada, and studied under prominent First Amendment scholars and attorneys during his LLM studies at Columbia Law School. He was also a panelist at the Law Commission of Ontario's international conference on Defamation Law and the Internet: Where Do We Go From Here? – one of the most thorough and wide-ranging appraisals of digital communication's impact on defamation law and public discourse to date.
