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27 June 2022
Our new Working Paper Societal Risks and Potential Humanitarian Impact of Cyber Operations provides an up-to-date assessment of existing risks and protection needs in light of contemporary and future military cyber capabilities.
Based on two expert workshops and four other consultations with individual experts – held between February and May 2021 – it addresses the following three overarching questions:
‘The expert consultation sought to gain insights from cybersecurity experts from different disciplines and with different backgrounds concerning the current developments of technological, political, and societal trends in the global cybersecurity landscape’ explains Professor Marco Roscini, Swiss IHL Chair at the Geneva Academy.
Geneva Academy
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Written by Pia Hüsch and Henning Lahmann, the report details in five distinct parts the actors involved in adversarial cyber operations, the methods they use, their objectives, on what the vulnerabilities of the targets depends, and what can be done to strengthen these targets’ resilience against cyber harm.
A sixth concluding part briefly touches upon some of the legal issues raised during the workshops and consultations that merit more in-depth consideration.
‘The main takeaways are that the different actors have become significantly more sophisticated in their attacks, using ever-more intricate methods – often in combination (e.g. a ransomware attack followed by an information operation). It has become more frequent to target entire societies, which is partly a function of increasing vulnerabilities especially in sectors where the digital transformation has been happening too quickly’ explains Henning Lahmann.
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The consultations and this resulting paper lay the factual groundwork for the remainder of our joint initiative with the International Committee of the Red Cross on the digitalization of conflict.
‘We can only conduct an informed legal analysis – as the basis for possible recommendations as to a possible further development of the law – with adequate expert knowledge on recent developments in the global cybersecurity landscape’ underlines Professor Roscini.
‘This paper therefore provides an adequate starting point for our research with the ICRC that addresses one of the most pressing challenges in the law of armed conflict today’ he adds.
Accept International
Dr Yosuke Nagai is the founder and CEO of Accept International, which works on de-radicalization and reintegration for defectors and prisoners formerly involved with violent extremist groups. He just started as Visiting Fellow at the Geneva Academy and will stay with us until the end of March.
Geneva Academy
While the armed violence between the government and the drug cartels, as well as between cartels themselves, remains high, it has become increasingly challenging to attribute these instances of violence and clashes to specific armed groups.
Adobe
In this Human Rights Conversation, panelists will discuss the challenges that neurotechnologies raise for the enjoyment of human rights and the current work of the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee on this issue.
ICRC
Organized by the Geneva Academy and the ICRC, the Advanced IHL seminar for academics and humanitarian policymakers aims to enhance the capacity of academics to teach and research IHL and contemporary issues arising during armed conflict, while also equipping policymakers with an in-depth understanding of ongoing legal debates and their relevance to decision-making.
Dave Klassen/The EITI
This project aimed at identifying and clarifying policies and practices for states and businesses, including public and private investors, across the full ‘conflict cycle’ and the ‘protect, respect and remedy’ pillars of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
UN Photo/Violaine Martin
The IHL-EP works to strengthen the capacity of human rights mechanisms to incorporate IHL into their work in an efficacious and comprehensive manner. By so doing, it aims to address the normative and practical challenges that human rights bodies encounter when dealing with cases in which IHL applies.
Geneva Academy
Geneva Academy