Ignacio Cofone and Omar Farahat promoted and granted tenure

The Faculty of Law is pleased to announce that Professor Ignacio Cofone and Professor Omar Farahat will be promoted to the rank of associate professor, with tenure, effective 1 June 2023.  

Ignacio Cofone holds the Canada Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence Law and Data Governance. A world-leading scholar of the law of privacy and artificial intelligence, his research focuses on data harms and on algorithmic decision-making. In his current projects, he examines how to evaluate privacy class actions and how to regulate algorithmic discrimination. He is the author of The Privacy Fallacy: Harm and Power in the Information Economy, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. In this monograph, he tackles the pressing topic of digital harms to privacy by tech companies, proposing a legal framework to introduce meaningful accountability in data governance and a path for law reform to recognize the value of privacy.  

Omar Farahat’s scholarship focuses on Islamic legal and moral theories, centred on the analysis of key concepts in Islamic legal theory in conversation with similar debates in contemporary jurisprudence. He is especially interested in the ideas of right, personhood, and social roles in classical legal theory, and the boundaries between legal rules and virtues in Islamic thought. His research has received funding from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). His monograph titled The Foundation of Norms in Islamic Jurisprudence and Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2019) explores the role of divine commands as a normative source in Islamic theology and legal theory. Prior to joining McGill in 2017, Professor Farahat practiced law in Cairo, New York, and Paris, and worked as a research fellow at Yale Law School.  

“I’m proud to see this well-deserved recognition of our two colleagues, whose scholarship and teaching in private law and other areas exemplify the Faculty of Law’s global outlook,” said Dean Robert Leckey, Ad E. “I look forward to their continued innovative contributions as they take on more senior roles in our community.”