[ISN] Manual Examines How International Law Applies to Cyberwarfare

http://www.cio.com/article/715288/Manual_Examines_How_International_Law_Applies_to_Cyberwarfare

By Jeremy Kirk
IDG News Service
September 03, 2012

A cybersecurity think tank has published a manual studying how 
international law applies to conflicts in cyberspace, where the laws of 
conventional warfare are more difficult to apply.

The manual comes from experts working with the Cooperative Cyber Defense 
Center of Excellence (CCDCOE), an institute based in Tallinn, Estonia, 
founded in 2008 that assists NATO with technical and legal issues 
associated with cyberwarfare-related issues.

The center's 215-page study, called the "Tallinn Manual on the 
International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare" and published by 
Cambridge University Press, is intended as a reference for legal 
advisers for government agencies. It examines existing international law 
that allows countries to legally use force against other nations, as 
well as laws governing the conduct of armed conflict.

"One of the challenges states face in the cyber environment is that the 
scope and manner of international law's applicability to cyber 
operations where in offense or defense has remained unsettled since 
their advent," wrote Michael N. Schmitt, project director and chairman 
of the International Law Department at the U.S. Naval War College, in 
the manual's introduction. "The threshold questions are whether the 
existing law applies to cyber issues at all, and, if so, how."

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