After Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer Brad Smith proposed [1] the creation of a “Digital Geneva Convention”, other commentators have voiced their support of the idea, arguing that there is an urgent need to establish shared rules on cyberwarfare and espionage.
The head of the Geneva Internet Platform Jovan Kurbalija published a lengthy piece [2] assessing the idea, pointing out that a multistakeholder approach is necessary for the creation and implementation of such a convention, as governments and private companies have many shared interests in the matter: “Major actors from government and the business sector stand to lose in the absence of a unified and stable Internet.”
Also Eugene Kaspersky, the CEO of Kaspersky Lab, welcomed the proposal enthusiastically [3], saying that a digital convention would help establish cybersecurity as “far away from politics as possible”. Kaspersky also notes that digital espionage, which is “out of control”, needs rules to prevent conflicts from escalating, and that the use of cyberweapons against civilians should be “absolutely off-limits”, just as chemical weapons are.
Given the rise in cyberattacks lately, including against the news media [4], and the allegations of state-sponsored interference in the US presidential elections, the calls for shared rules of engagement in the cyberspace are likely to amplify.
