INT proposal

CYBER PEACE PROPOSAL

Christina Yap-Mitchell

Running head: CYBER PEACE

CYBER PEACE 6

Introduction

The ubiquitous use of the internet for a myriad of purposes has made the internet the most targeted platform for cyber threats and cybercrimes on both individuals and organizations. The impacts of the cyber-crime is so well established. Companies have lost millions of money, internet users committed suicide or plunged into chronic mental conditions as well lives lost through the terrorist conspiracies of the internet (Reich et al., 2012). For this reason, cyber space becomes a quite important for the safety of countries and individuals around the globe. The issue discussed regarding cyber peace is that there is no Genera convention that addresses the cybercrime as propagated through the internet. Despite the rampant rummage of groups on the internet, there lacks infrastructure that addresses cyber peace conducted by the Geneva Convention.

Background

Until recently, the internet and all its users made a small community that exploited the various functionalities of the internet. However, with the increase in the usage of the internet, there has been a spate in the cybercrimes executed over the internet. As it stands, there are about 2 million people using the internet, and none of them has the level of internet security that can secure them from cybercrime. In the bid to address the issue of cyber peace, the interdependence between countries to face the issue has been focused on (Eriksson & Giacomello, 2007). The interdependence between technologically developed and technologically developing states is the first angle from which the issue can be tackled. States have not yet come to terms with the severe implications of cyber peace. Due to this, there lacks that collaborative effort to ensure the efforts are streamlined towards establishing cyber peace.

The Geneva Convention that legislates policies on warfare across the actors is now being glared at to provide solutions aligned to cybercrime. This is in line with the ways in which the Geneva Convention mobilizes countries for the sake of participation in peace keeping. The path to cyber peace is however crippled because of lack of co-operation. The states lack the knowledge of what constitutes cyber-attacks, cyber terrorism and so forth. Therefore, the countries’ security department have for a long time taken a backseat, waiting for the internet developers to design ways to secure users. This has not been very fruitful especially with the up surge in cybercrimes. The most that most of the countries have done is to have national policies addressing the issue of cyber security. The level of implementation of the polices is highly questionable and no specific party has been assigned the duty to ensure cyber peace prevails.

On the international co-operative perspective, cyber peace as an issue has always remained in the periphery of the security talks. The states retaliating for cyber-attacks seems to be the most preferred action by the states. Russia and the U.S. for instance have persistent wrangles because of the lack of cyber peace and they constantly aim at retaliating for the attacks made on them by the enemy. For the sake of such developed countries and those looking up to them, international cooperation on cyber peace is the vital ingredient in combating cybercrime. This ought to be done quite strategically, following laid out protocol to ensure that the countries are well aware of what their roles are in cyber peace. The factors to be considered in the solution involve the time aspect and the mechanism of implementation of cyber peace schemes.

Solution

The solution to cyber peace that was proposed by the International Telecommunication Union Secretary general Harmadoun Toure was for countries to sign to an International Cyber Peace Treaty (Touré, 2011). Under the provisions of this treaty, each country is to ensure that its internet infrastructure is used to organize and conduct cyber-attacks. The rationale to this proposal is considered from a myriad of perspectives on which it remains realistic. First, a number of developing nations are receiving national cyber security systems and the dominant part of these records affirm the part of cybersecurity as a national security need. To additionally investigate such an improvement and the idea of national cyber security techniques, the Center has led a near report called the National Cyber Security Framework Manual. The exploration states that a complete cyber security technique needs to consider various national partners with different obligations in guaranteeing national cybersecurity (Touré, 2011).

The national partners incorporate basic foundation suppliers, law requirement offices, worldwide associations, PC crisis reaction groups and elements guaranteeing interior and outer security. Critically, rather than survey cybersecurity as a blend of isolated zones or detached partners, the exercises of various subdomains and regions of ability ought to be facilitated. Furthermore, there are continuous exchanges about the relevance of global law to cyber activities. While it is broadly acknowledged that the internet should be ensured like air, ocean and arrive, and is plainly characterized by NATO Strategic Concept as a danger that can achieve a limit setting debilitating national and Euro-Atlantic thriving, security and strength, there are just a couple of worldwide assertions that would specifically address conduct in the internet (Dogrul, Aslan & Celik, 2011, June). The Geneva conventions held regularly would mandate countries to sign up to the treaty.

The Geneva Lecture Series for Internet Governance held on November 2017 revealed legions of insight on the way forward to cyber peace. The hot discussion that was moderated by the experts led to the unanimous agreement that not the technology sector, not the civil society, no individual person alone can successfully foster cyber peace. While assessing the role that each of these parties played in fueling cyber-crime or curbing it thereof, all the experts agreed to the fact that having a digital Geneva Convention would be more compelling than any other strategy. The arguments they put forth were nothing less than persuasive and compelling. The call for all these players to merge their efforts was echoed and to any one, these collaboration sounds like the ways forward. The most important aspect is for the governments to fully understand what factors catalyze cyber insecurity and the reasons why they should make the responsibility important to their operation.

Conclusion

There are practical answers for the specific issues, of cyber peace. There are conciliatory answers for specific issues only if international actors moved past their self-interest and ignorance on the issue of cyber peace. At last, there are human answers for such human issues. Peace isn't an unattainable objective; it is somewhat the strategic arrangement between the rights, lives, prosperity and security of every person in connection to all others (JOHNIGK, 2014). The international actors can only realize the far reaching implication of cybercrime on the economies, the social life, cultures and the political wrangles that have always ensued due to the unsolved friction tied to cybercrime. This broader look, much more than the persuasion from the Geneva Convention will drive international cooperation towards cyber peace agreements.

References

Dogrul, M., Aslan, A., & Celik, E. (2011, June). Developing an international cooperation on cyber defense and deterrence against cyber terrorism. In Cyber conflict (ICCC), 2011 3rd international conference on (pp. 1-15). IEEE.

Eriksson, J., & Giacomello, G. (Eds.). (2007). International relations and security in the digital age. Routledge.

JOHNIGK, S. (2014). Cyberpeace, Not Cyberwar. The Art of Reverse Engineering: Open-Dissect-Rebuild, 149.

Reich, P. C., Weinstein, S., Wild, C., & Cabanlong, A. S. (2012). Anonymity, Actual Incidents, Cyber Attacks, and Digital Immobilization. Law, Policy, and Technology: Cyberterrorism, Information Warfare, and Internet Immobilization: Cyberterrorism, Information Warfare, and Internet Immobilization, 170.

Touré, H. (2011). The Quest for cyber peace. International Telecommunication Union.