Latest from Nick:
New Treaty to Combat Cybercrime—but at What Cost?
Nick Ashton-Hart has spent the last two decades helping multinationals, UN member states and groups of member-states, intellectual property rights-holders and other non-governmental organisations successfully pursue their interests in high-stakes multilateral negotiations impacting law and policy globally. He has worked across a wide swathe of digital economy policy domains including world trade law, international telecommunications and standardization, Internet governance and copyright and related rights. He was a lead negotiator for the private sector in the UN cybercrime convention negotiations that concluded in 2024. As a senior director for Digital Economy Policy based in APCO’s New York office, Nick currently focuses on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and international peace and security’s cyber dimension and international law enforcement cooperation on cybercrime.
“You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.” (Aristotle)
Prior to joining APCO, Nick was at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) United Kingdom for a broad portfolio of digital economy issues. Nick was on the delegation of the United Kingdom to the International Telecommunications Union for more than a decade as lead negotiator for the European region’s 36 member-states on Internet-related economic policy issues, from the digital divide to mobile financial services to data protection and data governance, AI and various other aspects of telecommunications regulation.
He also served as global industry’s only dedicated representative in the Geneva international community addressing digital economic policy for more than 15 years. Nick has given witness multiple times at the UK House of Commons on legislation related to UK trade policy. As the only person not working full time for a trade ministry to participate in the negotiations directly, Nick participated in the 90-country digital trade plurilateral negotiations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as an advisor to several WTO Member states.
He began his career in multilateral affairs as a representative of music rightsholders at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), where he organized and led a coalition of the private sector and NGOs that prevented adoption of a treaty to copyright the transmissions of traditional broadcasters. He was also instrumental in the adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty for the visually impaired to gain access to copyrighted works in accessible formats, which included arranging the appearance of Stevie Wonder at WIPO to advocate for the treaty which created political momentum that was pivotal for the treaty’s ultimate adoption.
Nick started his working life managing a successful punk band, the UK Subs, at age 20, and finished his artist management career managing the “Godfather of Soul,” James Brown and multi-platinum electronic pop innovators Heaven 17, which gave him the background in global copyright that led to his work for artists at WIPO. He also had a career in the technology sector, starting as a systems administrator and ultimately consulting as a temporary CIO/CTIO for firms undergoing rapid transformation.
He contributed to two books on world trade law in 2016 and 2017 and writes periodically for the Council on Foreign Relations.