Location: Leiden University, Campus Den Haag, Wijnhaven - room 3.60, Turfmarkt 99, The Hague
Time: 15:30 - 17:00
Registration: free, via email (info@thehaguecybernorms.nl)

‍

This lecture will discuss the emerging framework for collective responses to cyberattacks through the lens of public international law. It will first identify current State practice on collective responses - ranging from collective attributions, persistent engagement in allied networks to cyber restrictive measures - and then turn to identifying gaps in the current framework as well as ways of filling these gaps. In doing so, it will focus in particular on Estonia's recent proposal regarding collective countermeasures. Based on an analysis of state practice and scholarship, the lecture will argue that the international law of state responsibility (as it currently stands) is at best ambiguous regarding collective countermeasures and at worst does not allow collective countermeasures against cyberattacks which constitute violations of norms such as sovereignty or non-intervention. Accordingly, the lecture will argue that in order to form a complete and robust framework for collective responses to cyber attacks, international law has to evolve. In closing, the lecture will offer views on whether such an evolution towards acceptance of collective countermeasures in cyberspace would be desirable as a matter of policy and how it might fit within the system of international law as applicable to cyberspace.