Inside Day Four: IBA Copenhagen Tackles AI, Ukraine, Corporate Crime and the Future of Legal Practice

Reloaded News International Desk

The fourth day of the International Bar Association’s 2026 Annual Conference in Copenhagen brought a wide range of pressing legal issues before lawyers and other legal professionals from around the world on Wednesday, October 7.

The day’s programme at the Bella Center covered artificial intelligence, children’s exposure to social media, corporate criminal liability, judicial wellbeing, cross-border employment disputes, Ukraine, international trade and the growing use of AI in legal disputes.

AI and Children Take Centre Stage

The morning programme examined the increasingly difficult legal questions created by children’s use of social media and artificial intelligence.

Two sessions considered the issue from different perspectives, examining whether social media platforms are suitable for children, whether platforms should have a legal duty of care and how different jurisdictions are responding to the risks facing young users.

A second session later examined the impact of AI on social media and families and the safeguards available to protect children in an increasingly digital environment.

The discussions reflected the growing intersection between technology, family law, communications law and regulation.

AI Liability Moves Into the Courtroom

Another morning session examined who should bear responsibility when artificial intelligence causes harm.

The discussion considered how traditional legal concepts such as fault, duty and causation apply to AI systems, as well as how risk should be distributed among developers, users and third parties.

The panel also examined ethical, regulatory and enforcement challenges and possible frameworks for compensation when AI systems cause harm.

The subject returned later in the afternoon during a session on AI disputes, which examined disputes arising from the development and integration of AI into products and services.

The session considered situations in which liability may extend across several participants in the AI supply chain and examined the advantages and limitations of arbitration compared with litigation in resolving such disputes.

Boards Face Growing Criminal Liability

Corporate accountability was another major issue on Wednesday.

The session titled “Criminal law in the boardroom” examined the increasing criminal exposure of directors and board members when companies fail to maintain adequate systems of oversight and compliance.

The discussion highlighted examples in which directors have faced personal criminal consequences following organisational failures and examined the growing importance of effective controls against corporate crime.

The IBA programme also pointed to the United Kingdom’s failure-to-prevent-fraud offence, which exposes companies and senior executives to significant consequences where adequate anti-fraud procedures are absent.

The message for corporate boards was clear; delegation of operational responsibilities does not remove the need for effective oversight and compliance structures.

Ukraine in Focus

One of the day’s special events brought the war in Ukraine directly into the conference programme.

“A conversation on Ukraine” featured Ukrainian Ambassador Anton Korynevych, Ambassador Andriy Kostin and Denmark’s Thomas Lund-Sørensen, with IBA Executive Director Mark Ellis chairing the discussion.

The session was held during the conference lunch period and formed part of the IBA’s programme of special conversations with figures addressing major international developments.

The inclusion of Ukraine placed the consequences of armed conflict and international relations alongside the legal profession’s wider discussions on international law and global institutions.

Nigerian SANs Participate in Key Sessions

Nigeria was represented in several of Wednesday’s specialist discussions.

Babatunde Ajibade SAN, managing partner of S. P. A. Ajibade & Co in Nigeria and Chair of the IBA’s Section on Public and Professional Interest, participated in the session on redesigning legal workplaces around mental health and wellbeing.

The session coincided with the launch of the IBA’s Global Guide for Mental Health and Wellbeing in Legal Workplaces.

It examined how legal organisations can redesign working practices to reduce psychosocial risks, support psychological health and maintain high-performing teams.

The programme also featured Folabi Kuti SAN of Union Attorneys in Lagos in a session on global labour and employment law trends.

The discussion covered cross-border internal investigations, privilege, whistleblowing, reputational risk and the interaction between employment law and criminal, data protection and media law.

Nigeria was also represented in the day’s judicial wellbeing discussion by Justice Ngozika Okaisabor of the Court of Appeal, Abuja, who participated in a session examining the implementation and continuing relevance of the 2024 Nauru Declaration on Judicial Wellbeing.

The session considered the pressures faced by judges and the steps being taken across jurisdictions to address judicial wellbeing.

Trade Becomes a Geopolitical Weapon

The final afternoon programme also examined the increasingly close relationship between international trade and geopolitics.

A session on “Geoeconomics and the weaponisation of trade” examined the use of tariffs, sanctions, export controls and other trade measures as instruments of geopolitical power.

The panel considered the legal limits of such measures, their consequences for companies and international trade agreements, responses by other countries and the implications for the World Trade Organization and the wider international trading system.

The session also examined the impact of recent United States tariff litigation and the resulting questions around executive authority, compliance and international trade policy.

A Profession Being Reshaped in Real Time

Wednesday’s programme demonstrated how closely today’s legal challenges are connected.

Artificial intelligence is creating new forms of liability and disputes.

Social media and AI are creating new questions about the protection of children.

Corporate failures are exposing directors to greater personal accountability.

Cross-border business is producing increasingly complex employment and regulatory disputes.

Geopolitical conflicts and trade measures are altering the environment in which international commerce operates.

At the same time, the profession itself is being forced to reconsider how lawyers work, how legal organisations protect their people and how technology should be incorporated into legal practice.

For Nigerian lawyers participating in these discussions, the Copenhagen proceedings provide direct access to debates that increasingly affect legal practice across jurisdictions.

Wednesday’s programme therefore placed technology, accountability, international conflict and professional responsibility side by side, showing how quickly the boundaries between different areas of legal practice are disappearing.

News that informs, Media that Transforms.