Adam Segal and Matthew Waxman (among other things, both fellows at the Council on Foreign Relations) write at CNN.com on why
the global cybersecurity threat leads many to believe that the only way to address this transnational issue is through a treaty — and why such a treaty is a pipedream.
The hacker – a government, a lone individual, a non-state group – stealing valuable intellectual property or exploring infrastructure control systems could be sitting in Romania, China, or Nigeria, and the assault could transit networks across several continents. Calls are therefore growing for a global treaty to help protect against cyber threats.
As a step in that direction, the British government is convening next week the London Conference on Cyberspace to promote new norms of cybersecurity and the free flow of information via digital networks. International diplomacy like this among states and private stakeholders is important and will bring needed attention to these issues. But the London summit is also likely to expose major fault lines, not consensus, on the hardest and most significant problems. The idea of ultimately negotiating a worldwide, comprehensive cybersecurity treaty is a pipe dream.
Different interests among powerful states – stemming from different strategic priorities, internal politics, public-private relationships and vulnerabilities – will continue to pull them apart on how cyberspace should be used, regulated, and secured. With the United States and European democracies at one end and China and Russia at another, states disagree sharply over such issues as whether international laws of war and self-defense should apply to cyber attacks, the right to block information from citizens, and the roles that private or quasi-private actors should play in Internet governance. Many emerging Internet powers and developing states lie between these poles, while others are choosing sides.
Segal and Waxman point out not only ways in which a treaty regime is likely an instance of overreaching that, were anyone actually to rely on it, is likely to fail. They go on to present a positive agenda of steps that states can take in order to develop what amount to state practices aimed at consolidating looser norms of state behavior and best practices of states, without reaching to a treaty regime.
