NIGERIA · WASHINGTON
FOUNDING COUNSEL
A Nigerian lawyer practicing across three frontiers — space and strategic policy, health and human systems, innovation and infrastructure — with technology threaded through them all.
Cybel Nyen Ekpa is a Nigerian lawyer, scholar, and the founding counsel of Lurcene — a firm built for the legal questions that don't yet have answers. Her practice spans three frontiers: space and strategic policy; health and human systems; and innovation and infrastructure — with intellectual property and emerging-technology governance running through them all.
Her formal training reflects that double lens. She holds an LL.M. in Intellectual Property and Technology Law from the American University Washington College of Law — where her academic focus was space law, sustainability, and cybersecurity — alongside an MBA in business administration. The combination is deliberate. Cybel approaches each matter as both lawyer and operator: trained to read the rules with the rigour of a barrister, and trained to read the business, regulatory, and technological context with the discipline of a strategist.
That space is widening. Anti-satellite weapons and autonomous orbital systems are exposing gaps in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Digital therapeutics, health data, and AI-assisted diagnostics are running ahead of clinical regulation. Smart cities, digital assets, and an evolving land economy are testing infrastructure laws drafted for a slower century. Across all three frontiers, the legal question is no longer what the rules say — it is what the rules should say next.
Cybel's writing engages those questions directly. Her essay "Global cooperation at the final frontier", published in the Legal Cheek Journal, argues that the once-clear distinction between the militarisation and the weaponisation of space has collapsed — and that the cost of that ambiguity, in an era of cyber-enabled orbital warfare and dual-use defence platforms, is no longer theoretical. One reader, in a published comment, called her "a particularly clear and compelling writer." It is a description her work earns by treating legal complexity as something to clarify rather than to perform.
At American University, Cybel served as President of the LL.M. Board, leading academic and policy initiatives across an international cohort. A former Youth Parliamentarian representing Cross River State, she used the platform to advocate for young girls' entry into STEM and space technology — work that became the seed of WEWIN, the non-profit she co-founded with her sister to advance the education and welfare of young girls and women in Nigeria — reflecting what those who have worked with her describe as a consistent thread in her practice: that law, at its best, is not a profession of clever argument but a means of widening the circle of people the future will reach.
She founded Lurcene to build the kind of firm she had not seen elsewhere — willing to take on novel matters, willing to publish openly, and unwilling to treat its practice areas as separate departments. Space, health, and innovation are not three businesses sharing a letterhead. They are three faces of the same frontier.
"Law, at its best, is not a profession of clever argument but a means of widening the circle of people the future will reach."
Built Lurcene as a frontier-focused practice spanning space and strategic policy, health and human systems, and innovation and infrastructure — with intellectual property and emerging-technology governance running across all three. Advises Nigerian and international clients on regulatory strategy, satellite licensing, health-technology compliance, and IP.
Graduate business training covering strategy, operations, finance, and the commercial context in which regulated industries operate. The MBA complements the legal training: lawyer's judgment paired with operator's instinct.
Focused on space law, sustainability, and cybersecurity. Served as President of the LL.M. Board, leading academic and policy initiatives. Affiliated with the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP).
Co-founded a non-profit dedicated to the education, welfare, and economic empowerment of young girls and women in Nigeria through scholarship support, mentorship, and skills programmes.
Called to the Nigerian Bar following completion of the LL.B. and the Bar Final examinations. Member, Nigerian Bar Association.
A peer-reviewed paper in the Padova University Press journal examining the legal vacuum at the intersection of AI and biotechnology. Building on the DABUS line of cases (Thaler v. Vidal) and the "product of nature" doctrine (Diamond v. Chakrabarty, Myriad Genetics), the paper argues that the human-centric foundation of patent law is fundamentally inadequate for inventions autonomously generated by AI, and calls for a sui generis IP right to provide the legal clarity needed for continued innovation. Vol. 8, Issue 1, pp. 91–110. DOI: 10.25430/pupj-JELT-2026-1-4.
Co-authored with Janice Tagoe (Washington State University, Global Policy Institute) for the GPI Papers Series in Washington, D.C. Maps the convergence of artificial intelligence and space exploration — from autonomous spacecraft navigation and orbital data centers to AI-assisted planetary research — and works through the legal architecture left behind by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and the 1972 Liability Convention. Argues that questions of liability, intellectual property, data governance, and regulatory oversight require new soft-law principles, adaptive national licensing, and clearer fault standards for the autonomous era.
A reassessment of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty in an era of anti-satellite weapons, directed-energy systems, dual-use platforms, and autonomous orbital decision-making. Argues that the distinction between militarisation and weaponisation has collapsed, and proposes four pillars for renewed international consensus.
Published in the International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology. Full title and abstract to be updated.
A detailed examination of Nigeria's NASRDA Act and the regulatory framework governing space operations in the country. Addresses four pivotal questions: which activities require licensing, the criteria for license issuance, the conditions for maintaining a license, and the role of a dedicated telecommunications agency — positioning Nigeria's framework against international comparators.
An early exploration of how intellectual property law applies — or fails to apply — beyond Earth's atmosphere. Examines the jurisdictional gap left by the Outer Space Treaty's silence on IP, contrasts the case for extending terrestrial IP regimes into orbit against the case for a bespoke space-IP framework, and argues for a balance that protects innovation without foreclosing collaboration in the evolving space industry.
Each entry is a single <a class="pub-item"> block. Copy the commented template inside pub-list, fill in the link, date, title, venue, and description, and the new entry will appear with the same hover animation as the others. New long-form essays go in lurcene.html under the #writing section; short commentary goes in the Case Notes section.
A feature profile in one of Nigeria's leading national newspapers covering Cybel's trajectory in space law, intellectual property, leadership, and the work of WEWIN.
An interview with The Sun Nigeria on the strategic role of space policy in Nigeria's sustainability and national security agenda — covering NASRDA's mandate, satellite technology in environmental monitoring and counter-terrorism, alignment with the Paris Agreement, and the case for a comprehensive Nigerian framework integrating space activity with environmental stewardship and capacity-building.
Member · Admitted as Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
LL.M. graduate · Former President, LL.M. Board · Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property network.
Co-founder · A non-profit advancing the education and welfare of young girls and women in Nigeria.
Outer Space Treaty reform · NHIA implementation · Land Use Act revision · AI and autonomous systems liability · digital health regulation.