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Pressing Pause: A New
Approach for International
Cybersecurity Norm
Development
Abstract: Over the last few years, the international community has devoted much
attention to the topic of “international cyber norms”. However, there appears to be
a fundamental tension between these norm-development efforts and their real-world
application as effective tools to reduce cyber risk and deter or prevent malicious
state and non-state actors. Furthermore, in the current geopolitical climate, a broad
agreement on global cyber norms seems improbable, as suggested by the lack of
consensus in the course of the UN GGE 2017 process.
In the meantime, government ofcials tasked with developing and deploying
cybersecurity policy and law face day-to-day challenges and are operating on a
different track. Questions continuously arise with respect to the role of the state in
formulating cybersecurity standards, information sharing, active defense and privacy
protection. These questions are dealt with mostly in the “civilian” cybersecurity
sphere and are occurring largely under the radar of the global “international cyber
norms” community.
Against this backdrop, the paper suggests a shift in the approach to cyber norms.
Its central thesis is that, at this juncture, rather than attempting to create a set of
pre-dened aspirational norms aimed at achieving global stability, the international
community should pay greater attention to discussions that are already occurring
between cybersecurity regulators/authorities and should proactively support such
discussions. Incremental and “bottom-up” processes, covering technical, policy and
legal challenges at the domestic level, create fertile grounds for discussions that
Cedric Sabbah
Ofce of the Deputy Attorney General (International Law)
Ministry of Justice
Israel
1
2018 10th International Conference on Cyber Conict
CyCon X: Maximising Eects
T. Minárik, R. Jakschis, L. Lindström (Eds.)
2018 © NATO CCD COE Publications, Tallinn
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1
The views and opinions stated herein belong to the author only, and are not reective of Israel’s Ministry
of Justice or the Israeli government.
