The vital role of international law in the framework for responsible state behaviour in cyberspace

Abstract

This article explores the importance of international law in debates about responsible behaviour in cyberspacein providing a rulesbased framework, in legitimising states' actions in response to unlawful activity in cyberspace by other states, and in lending normative force to statements calling out malicious cyber activity. At the same time, the article seeks to highlight the challenges involved in applying international law, and uses the application of two peacetime precepts of international lawthe principle of sovereignty and the principle of non-intervention in other states' internal affairsto illustrate some of the doctrinal issues with which states are grappling. While acknowledging these challenges, the article concludes that even if the UN parallel processes in the form of the Open Ended Working Group and Group of Government Experts do not result in substantial agreement between states on issues of international law, the debates in themselves are valuable in encouraging states to deliberate on these issues and to make their views public. By publicising their views, states add momentum to the journey towards cyber-specific understandings of international law.

In Search of Digital Sovereignty and Strategic Autonomy: Normative Power Europe to the Test of Its Geopolitical Ambitions

“…Primarily, the question of sovereignty in cyberspace has been studied largely through a ‘territorial ontology’ (Cristiano 2019; Lambach 2020). International law scholarship has worked on the questions of if, how and when cyber operations constitute a violation of territorial sovereignty (Schmitt and Vihul 2017; Delerue 2020; Roguski 2020; Moynihan 2021). Another contested debate has been on whether it is possible and appropriate to reproduce the Westphalian system in cyberspace by fragmenting it into national segments (Demchak and Dombrowski 2013; Broeders 2015; Mueller 2017, 2020).…”