The United Nations international cybercrime treaty has been finalized and will be voted on by the UN General Assembly’s 193 member states, potentially as soon as September, 2024.
In an article for Lawfare, the Citizen Lab’s senior research associate Kate Robertson analyzes how, in its current form, the draft treaty is poised “to become a vehicle for complicity in the global mercenary spy trade.” Robertson warns that despite widespread agreement among civil society and industry alike that the treaty will do more harm than good in combating transnational crime. The proposed treaty’s surveillance and cooperation procedures in Chapters IV and V contain gaps that could be exploited by countries seeking legal justification for using commercial spyware. If adopted by the General Assembly, the UN’s treaty would represent one of the first major setbacks amid ongoing international efforts to combat mercenary spyware, and a missed opportunity for international law reform to target transnational dissident cyber espionage.
Kate Robertson is a senior research associate at the Citizen Lab.
Read the article here: