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Sarah Shirazyan

Sarah Shirazyan
Sarah Shirazyan
  • Lecturer in Law
  • Research Fellow, Hoover Institution

shirazy@stanford.edu

Biography

Sarah Shirazyan is a Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. Her work focuses on AI governance, technology law and policy, and free speech.

She has spent more than a decade building technology policy across the tech industry and international organizations. Dr. Shirazyan served as Director of AI Product Policy at Meta, where she led the team responsible for global policies governing the company’s AI products. Earlier, she built and led the team responsible for bringing outside expertise into the company’s content policy development. Her work addressed some of the technology industry’s most consequential questions about online expression and information governance, including state-controlled media, algorithmic distribution, news integrity, misinformation and harmful manipulation, generative AI content, and the fediverse.

Before her work in the technology sector, Shirazyan worked as a human rights lawyer at the European Court of Human Rights and as a data protection consultant at the Council of Europe. She also worked on nuclear security at the United Nations and investigated transnational drug cartel cases at INTERPOL. From 2017-2020, she founded and led the INTERPOL-Stanford Law Policy Lab. The lab advised INTERPOL’s leadership on governance and technology-industry partnerships to combat transnational online crime.

Shirazyan holds a Doctor of Juridical Sciences from Stanford Law School. She received the Gerald J. Lieberman Award for outstanding research and teaching. Her dissertation analyzed the effectiveness of the U.N. Security Council’s response to WMD terrorism. She was also a MacArthur Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. Her work has appeared in the Journal of National Security Law and Policy, Lawfare, Just Security, the Stanford Journal of Online Trust and Safety, and Arms Control Today.

Education

  • J.S.D., Stanford Law School
  • LL.M., (SOAS/UCL) University of London

Courses

Selected Publications

See All Publications

Policy Practicums

Reforming INTERPOL’s Governance Model

Today, the international community faces increasingly complex security challenges arising from transnational criminal activities. Effective international cooperation among national and local police agencies is critical in supporting efforts to combat […]

Rethinking INTERPOL’s Governance Model

Today, the international community faces increasingly complex security challenges arising from transnational criminal activities. Effective international cooperation among national police agencies is critical in combatting cross-boundary criminal threats like terrorism, […]

Supporting INTERPOL’s Efforts to Combat Transnational Crime (805Z)

Today, the international community faces increasingly complex security challenges arising from transnational criminal activities. Effective international cooperation among national law enforcement authorities is critical in combatting cross-border threats like terrorism, […]
“How Can My Training Create Real-World Value?” Advising INTERPOL on a 2020 Strategy: Student Research Team with INTERPOL Secretary General Jurgen Stock. The project is led by Professor Allen Weiner, and Lecturer Sarah Shirazyan

“How Can My Training Create Real-World Value?”

A Conversation with Sarah Shirazyan about INTERPOL, teaching policy analysis, and life beyond law school

By Sarah Shirazyan (JSD '17), co-lead for INTERPOL Policy Practicum

Q&A with Luciana Herman, Policy Lab Program Director

INTERPOL—the world’s largest police organization—has been investigating international crimes for nearly a century. With 192 member countries, the International Criminal Police Organization is the connective tissue between different nations’ police operations; it operates from its global headquarters in Lyon, France, to support police forces with cyber analysis, communications, and shared data, investigating crimes occurring across national borders including identity theft, fraud, money laundering, smuggling, and trafficking.

Working directly with the INTERPOL General Secretariat, the Policy Lab INTERPOL practicum research team recently returned from Lyon, France, where it briefed INTERPOL decision makers on possible reforms to its governance model. With rapid changes in technology and systems of international justice, INTERPOL launched the INTERPOL 2020 Initiative to review the Organization’s strategy and priorities and develop a clear roadmap for strengthening its policing capabilities. The organization partnered with the Policy Lab practicum to help it innovate to respond to an evolving threat landscape and remain at the forefront of global policing efforts.

This Q&A with Sarah Shirazyan (JSD '17), the co-lead with Professor Allen Weiner for the INTERPOL Policy Lab Practicum, describes how Sarah’s path through Stanford Law School led to partnering with INTERPOL as a policy client on behalf of its 2020 Initiative.
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