Together with the Permanent Missions of the Republic of Kenya to the United Nations in New York and Geneva, the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs (ODA) in Geneva and New York, ICT4Peace co-hosted on 24 June 2020 its 3rd Capacity Building Workshop on Cybersecurity Policy and Diplomacy with African Diplomatic Delegations in Geneva, New York and from Capitals.The workshops have been realized with the generous support of the Office of the Special Envoy for Cyber Foreign and Security Policy of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
These workshops are being carried out in support of the ongoing Round of negotiations on Cybersecurity by the UN Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) (A/RES/73/27) and UN GGE Negotiations on Cybersecurity (A/RES/73/266),
The agenda, topics and the lecturers of the 3rd workshop can be found here and were as follows:
The workshop was opened and chaired by Ms. Eva Nthoki, Permanent Mission of the Republic of Kenya to the UN, New York. Ms. Radha Day, Office for Disarmament Affairs (ODA), Geneva and Daniel Stauffacher, President, ICT4Peace made opening remarks. Mr. Yao Yue of ODA Geneva hosted the webinar platform. Two similar workshops were held with African Diplomats in New York on 27 September 2019 and on 6 February 2020.
- Update on the UN GGE and UN OEWG Processes by Mr. Ingmar Snabilie, Office for Disarmament Affairs (ODA), New York.
- Responsible State Behaviour in Cyberspace (International Law + Cyber Norms) by Dr. Przemyslaw Roguski, Faculty of Law and Administration, Jagiellonian University, Poland
- International Humanitarian Law and cyber operations during armed conflicts by Mr. Tilman Rodenhauser, ICRC, Geneva
With two Resolutions in 2018, the 74th session of the UN General Assembly decided to convene a new edition of the UN Governmental Group of Experts (GGE) on Cybersecurity (A/RES/73/266) and for the first time an Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on Cybersecurity (A/RES/73/27). A first meeting of the OEWG was held on 9 to 13 September 2019 and the OEWG intersessional Meeting was held on 2-4 December 2019. The second formal OEWG Meeting was held in New York from 10 to 14 February 2020. The UN GGE has held informal consultations on 5 and 6 December 2019 and two formal UN GGE Meetings took place from 9 to 13 December 2019 in New York and from 24 to 28 February 2020 in Geneva. Please find a detailed description here of the status of the UN OEWG and UN GGE processes.
********
During the discussion, Daniel Stauffacher mentioned ICT4Peace’s Call to Governments: Critical Infrastructure and Offensive Cyber Operations. He flagged the “States Cyber Peer Review Mechanism” for state-conducted foreign cyber operations, led by the Foundation. Furthermore, the initiative titled “Trust and Attribution in Cyberspace: An ICT4Peace proposal for an independent network of organisations engaging in attribution peer review” also led by ICT4Peace, was noted.
Stauffacher then referred to the ICT4Peace submission to the OEWG negotiations in September 2019, held in New York.
A note on the ICT4Peace Cybersecurity and Diplomacy capacity building program can be found here.
On 12 August 2019, ICT4Peace had also been invited by the Organisation of American States (OAS) to conduct its one day workshop on cybersecurity policy and diplomacy called: „Cyber Diplomacy in the UN Process“. The Program of that workshop can be found here.
ICT4Peace has also contributed the EU Regional Consultations on the UN GGE process.
ICT4Peace has written about and contributed to the work of the UN GGE over many years, some posts on our activities can be found here.
In cooperation with the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (ODA) ICT4Peace published the first Commentary on the norms developed by the previous UN GGE Meetings.
