ICT4Peace was invited for the second time to attend the Wuzhen World Internet Conference. In the workshop “Norms in Cyberspace: Practises and Explorations”, organised by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICR), ICT4Peace’s Daniel Stauffacher expressed the hope that the negotiations at the UN in New York on international norms of responsible state behaviour and confidence-building measures would resume, either in the form of a group of governmental experts or an open-ended working group of governments.
More importantly, Daniel called for a speedy implementation by States of the norms already agreed in the 2015 report of the UN Group of Governmental Experts on Cybersecurity (UN GGE), at the bilateral, regional and global levels. At the national level through inter alia cybersecurity strategies, policies and legislation. He also underscored the importance of CERTs and their international cooperation for building global trust and security in Cyberspace.
As the workshop explored practises and explorations to promote norms for a peaceful cyberspace, Daniel mentioned a few examples of how ICT4Peace experts support the development, promotion and implementation of norms of responsible behaviour and CBMs, such as the recently launched first-ever Commentary on the UN GGE proposed norms of responsible state behaviour published by UNODA. He highlighted the ICT4Peace cybersecurity policy and diplomacy capacity building program, especially for developing countries and the 2013 publication of ICT4Peace on the role of civil society in the promotion of peace and security in cyberspace. He introduced the new ICT4Peace UN GGE – OSCE Road Map that suggests leaving aside a distinction between norms, CBMs and International Law, but values them all by topics as useful contributions to predictability and certainty of behaviour by states in cyberspace.
He stressed the urgent need for Governments to engage more with civil society and business companies in the discussion on norms and mentioned the Geneva Dialogue on Responsible Behaviour in Cyberspace, launched by the Government of Switzerland as a good example of such a structured dialogue.
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ICT4Peace experts have been working on the question of norms of responsible behaviour and confidence-building measures (CBMs) and capacity building in cyberspace since 2007 and launched a call for a code of conduct in cyberspace in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) in 2011. See also the publication of 2011 Getting down to business: Realistic goals for the promotion of peace in cyber-space: A Code of conduct for Cyber-conflicts. ICT4Peace has been actively supporting the work of UN GGE, OSCE, ASEAN, OAS on Norms and CBMs and Capacity Building. ICT4Peace is also an early supporter of the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace.