Cyber Norms and the United Nations
2 Apr 2020

Cyber Norms and the United Nations

Commentary

In this new article for ISPI (Italian Institute for International Political Studies), Dennis Broeders and Fabio Cristiano discuss the role of the United Nations as a normative power when it comes to responsible state behaviour in cyberspace.

Cyberspace’ became a UN issue in 1998 when Russia first tabled a resolution on ‘Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security’ with the aim of starting negotiation of a treaty to regulate the possible use of ICTs in international conflict. Interestingly, what Russia feared most at that time was the ‘development, production or use of particularly dangerous forms of information weapons’, i.e. information warfare, which is arguably what Russia is best at today. Most Western states – in this debate often grouped under the term ‘likeminded states’ – did not want to go down the route of negotiating a multilateral treaty. In their view cyberspace did not...

Continue reading at ISPI here.

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