UNIDIR Cyber Stability Seminar: “Preventing Cyber Conflict”

Director Hitchens
Excellencies
Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a pleasure to welcome you all to the Palais des Nations. First of all, thank you to UNIDIR for again bringing us together in discussion on one of the key challenges before us.

It is beyond doubt that the Internet is changing the daily lives of most global citizens – even if we still have some way to go in connecting all to the web. From how Governments operate to new ways of carrying out commercial activities, the cyber domain is perhaps the most important game-changer of our time. In 1993, only 50 Internet websites existed; this number increased to 555 million in 2011 and will only continue to grow.

Cyber resources clearly have immense potential to contribute to improved economic and social well-being. At the same time, the cyber domain is now also an extension of the traditional international security environment.

For those of you who attended the UNOG Executive Briefing by the World Economic Forum on Friday, you heard how cyber security – together with unemployment – was a key topic in Davos last month. And for good reason. Benefits come with risks and costs. We have seen a steady annual increase in cybercrime and other types of malfeasance in the cyber sphere in tandem with the expansion of use. Overall, cyber attacks worldwide are becoming more complex and frequent, and the economic damage caused is growing.

Of particular relevance for the discussion today, cyber resources are now being considered part of many States’ defensive arsenals and are – in many cases – now factored in to military and strategic calculations. This is a reality that must be addressed by the international community at the multilateral level.

In a number of States, serious policy debates are underway regarding potential military responses to threats in the cyber domain, such as preventive strikes with conventional weapons or cyber counterattacks that could destroy, deny, disrupt or corrupt an adversary’s attempt to use cyberspace for a military attack.

National, regional and international efforts are ongoing to assess the risks associated with military use of cyber offence, as well as issues of how international law would apply to such use.

Technologies and applications of cyber resources in a military context are changing fast. If not adequately regulated, they may become serious threats to stability. Building understanding and agreement on what is acceptable behaviour is a challenge which the international community must confront.

For its part, the United Nations have been reviewing developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security since 1998 when the General Assembly requested the establishment of a group of government experts to examine existing and potential threats from the cyber sphere and possible cooperative measures to address them.

As Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has urged, it is important to focus on the centrality of the Charter of the United Nations and international law as well as the importance of States exercising responsibility. The United Nations plays an important role in promoting dialogue among Member states on the issue of security in the use of ICTs and in developing international cooperation. Aspects of cyber issues are now being discussed throughout the United Nations system, with capacity-building in specialized agencies such as the ITU, and discussion of privacy and the impact of mass surveillance in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights – to name but two areas.

The Group of Governmental Experts on Information Security which concluded its work last summer and presented its consensus report to the 2013 General Assembly clearly showed that there is a willingness within the international community to discuss and build agreement on these sometimes difficult issues. I look forward to the next GGE on information security, which will start its work this year, and have every hope that it will be another step towards a more stable cyber domain. Similarly, the General Assembly Resolution on the right to privacy in the digital age reflects growing concern with ensuring the same protection of human rights in cyber space as elsewhere.

Geneva, as the seat of multilateral disarmament and a hub of expertise and knowledge on human rights and ICTs, has a key role to play in providing a forum for discussion of how to build transparency and confidence in the cyber domain and how best to ensure that cyber resources can continue to be used peacefully for the benefit of all Member States and their citizens. Today’s seminar is very much part of these collective efforts.

I wish you a productive and enlightening discussion.

Thank you.