Toni Erskine is Professor of International Politics in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University (ANU). She is recipient of the International Studies Association’s 2024-25 Distinguished Scholar Award in International Ethics, Associate Fellow of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at Cambridge University, and Chief Investigator of the ‘Anticipating the Future of War: AI, Automated Systems, and Resort-to-Force Decision Making’ Research Project, funded by the Australian Government through a grant by Defence. She recently served a five-year term as Director of the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the ANU (2018-2023). She also served as Editor of International Theory: A Journal of International Politics, Law, and Philosophy (2019-2023) and Academic Lead for the United Nations (UN) Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific / Association for Pacific Rim Universities ‘AI for Social Good: Strengthening Capabilities and Government Frameworks in Asia and the Pacific’ Research Project (2021-2023).
Professor Erskine’s research is located at the intersection of International Relations (IR), international security, and moral and political philosophy. Her areas of research expertise include: the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on world politics and organised violence; the ‘institutional moral agency’ and responsibility of formal organisations (including states, intergovernmental organisations, and transnational corporations); the ethics and laws of war; human protection in the face of mass atrocity crimes; the role of joint action and informal coalitions in response to global crises and existential threats; cosmopolitan theories and their critics; and the prospect (she’s sceptical) of AI-driven systems as ‘synthetic moral agents’.
