The 7th International Conference on Cyber Conflict (CyCon 2015), hosted by the NATO Cooperation Cyber Defence Center of Excellence (CCDCOE) in Tallinn, Estonia, is approaching at great speed. This year’s topic will be “Architectures in Cyberspace”. 2015 will also be when the second edition of the Tallinn Manual – dubbed “The Tallinn Manual 2.0” – will be published.
The first manual, called the Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare, was published in 2013 after 3 years of research by a group of international experts, most of them coming from the field of international law. The CCDCOE, one of NATO’s Centres of Excellence, invited numerous experts of international law to study how cyber warfare should be applied to international law. The Tallinn Manual tries to answer questions about ius ad bellum (justice of war) and ius in bello (justice in war) that arises in cyber warfare, and new relation cyber warfare has with international law. It plays a great role in voicing and giving a platform to the opinions of cyber security and international law scholars as well as experts on this emerging and testing topic.
The different possibilities of threats from cyber attacks have made experts, journalist, and NATO official ask the question: can Article 5 be triggered by cyber attacks. The official response is “maybe”. A cyber attack “could” potentially trigger Article 5, as Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told the media on March 25, 2015. Only time will tell in which context this will happen and what the repercussion will be on the international stage. In the meanwhile, hopefully, the Tallinn Manual will help NATO open dialogue between its members to create, at least, a plan that will set certain guidelines and rules to prompt Article 5 in the case of a cyber attack.
From the scholarly and non-governmental prospect view, the impact of the Tallinn Manuals may drastically advance the issue of cyber security in international law and international relations. Nonetheless, we can already recognise this research will help advance and better understand how very important concepts as states, sovereignty, and jurisdictions can be and are affected by cyber security matters. It will also allow researchers to build frameworks of research and analysis to help open up dialogue and to find solutions that will abide international law and hopefully not affect the integrity of states. States need to know how to react to cyber-attacks and properly solidify their cyber security. They also need to have plans which should be created in a manner that will exemplify clearly the possibility of retaliation or not.
From the scholarly and non-governmental prospect view, the impact of the Tallinn Manuals may drastically advance the issue of cyber security in international law and international relations. Nonetheless, we can already recognise this research will help advance and better understand how very important concepts as states, sovereignty, and jurisdictions can be and are affected by cyber security matters. It will also allow researchers to build frameworks of research and analysis to help open up dialogue and to find solutions that will abide international law and hopefully not affect the integrity of states. States need to know how to react to cyber-attacks and properly solidify their cyber security. They also need to have plans which should be created in a manner that will exemplify clearly the possibility of retaliation or not.
Author: Phillippe Bisson, Casimir Pulaski Foundation
Infographic:
These are the results for NATO member countries (USA and Canada had the results 0.824 and 0.794 respectively, Turkey has an equivalent result as Latvia – 0.6471) on the Global Cybersecurity Index made by ABI Research and International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which is a UN specialized agency. The results of the Index varies 0 (worst) and 1 (best).