Late last year, the United Kingdom, France, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and dozens more nations signed the United Nations Convention Against Cybercrime, a treaty ostensibly intended to improve global cooperation to fight crimes taking place over computer systems.
In general, I think your take is correct: this is a treaty that allows for authoritarians to increase their power over individuals, including by potentially limiting speech.
But that doesn't mean there isn't genuine demand for this treaty. 79 States voted in favor of Resolution 74/247, which started the drafting process, and the UNGA adopted the convention itself through consensus.
The challenge is how can international cyber crime be curtailed in a rights-respecting manner? Unfortunately, rights-respecting countries couldn't come up with an answer fast enough, and now we have this convention.
While it's not yet in force, it has dozens of signatories, including from non-authoritarian countries. Almost certainly this will come into force, and a new tool that could be used to restrict individual rights will come with it.
You are correct that there was a strong demand for this treaty, including the electronic evidence sharing provisions, especially among developing countries with data stored overseas.
Consider that in the absence of the treaty, whether authoritarians still have the authority to increase domestic legislation that potentially limits speech? I think yes, and the Convention does not increase or approve of that authority which could also violate a country’s obligations under the UDHR. To the contrary, the Convention has a panoply of human rights requirements and limitations on domestic authority, the strongest statement on human rights ever in any UN criminal treaty and a new benchmark for future treaties. These provisions exceed similar human rights protections in the Council of Europe’s Budapest Convention on Cybercrime which remains the gold standard in international cybercrime law because of its membership (including almost all the West) and the additional protocols available under that instrument. The UN Convention borrowed liberally from the Budapest Convention which underlines the continuing relevance of the COE treaty.
Treaties address principally international cooperation and in this case, the Convention also has provisions on offenses and procedural authorities that member states should implement. And as I mentioned, these human rights and international cooperation provisions also afford a range of objections and refusals when authoritarian countries ask for cooperation in illegitimate investigations. Treaties do not have provisions to “punish” member states which flout the human rights provisions. Instead, refusals and political pressure through a Conference of State Parties (the “COSP,” still to be established) are the avenues to shape the application of the treaty domestically. The future of the UN Convention and its utility to practitioners is still to be determined. However, it’s surely premature to declare it a definitive threat to human rights.
Some countries take a restrictive view of free expression and may criminalize speech in ways that would not be permissible in the United States. A country might define crimes in its domestic law that impinge on free speech as understood in rights-respecting legal systems. But that approach has no legal basis in the Convention, and the Convention does not require other countries to cooperate in enforcing laws that violate free-expression rights. Therefore, it is mistaken to claim that the Convention’s cooperation tools for “serious crime” invite domestic laws that criminalize free speech or enable abusive international cooperation requests.
A similar, broader serious-crime provision already exists in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC). Countries have years of experience handling evidence requests under UNTOC across a wide range of lawful and legitimate criminal investigations. Unlike UNTOC, the Cybercrime Convention’s serious-crime provision is limited to obtaining and sharing properly predicated electronic evidence. Today, electronic evidence is often generated by criminal conduct that is not fairly described as “cybercrime,” and that evidence may be located anywhere in the world. Without a mechanism for requesting international assistance to obtain electronic evidence, the Convention would be significantly weakened as a practical treaty for investigators and prosecutors.
Importantly, nothing in the Convention requires a country to provide cooperation where the conduct under investigation is not a crime under its own law; the request fails necessity or proportionality standards; or the request does not satisfy applicable human rights protections. The Convention also preserves legal safeguards—including dual criminality checks, human-rights refusals, and public policy exceptions—that rights-respecting countries can use to reject foreign investigations that violate civil liberties, including free speech.
Aren’t these the same jokers who want global gun control? There are reasons we have the second amendment. This would be a sterling example of those very reasons.
In general, I think your take is correct: this is a treaty that allows for authoritarians to increase their power over individuals, including by potentially limiting speech.
But that doesn't mean there isn't genuine demand for this treaty. 79 States voted in favor of Resolution 74/247, which started the drafting process, and the UNGA adopted the convention itself through consensus.
The challenge is how can international cyber crime be curtailed in a rights-respecting manner? Unfortunately, rights-respecting countries couldn't come up with an answer fast enough, and now we have this convention.
While it's not yet in force, it has dozens of signatories, including from non-authoritarian countries. Almost certainly this will come into force, and a new tool that could be used to restrict individual rights will come with it.
You are correct that there was a strong demand for this treaty, including the electronic evidence sharing provisions, especially among developing countries with data stored overseas.
Consider that in the absence of the treaty, whether authoritarians still have the authority to increase domestic legislation that potentially limits speech? I think yes, and the Convention does not increase or approve of that authority which could also violate a country’s obligations under the UDHR. To the contrary, the Convention has a panoply of human rights requirements and limitations on domestic authority, the strongest statement on human rights ever in any UN criminal treaty and a new benchmark for future treaties. These provisions exceed similar human rights protections in the Council of Europe’s Budapest Convention on Cybercrime which remains the gold standard in international cybercrime law because of its membership (including almost all the West) and the additional protocols available under that instrument. The UN Convention borrowed liberally from the Budapest Convention which underlines the continuing relevance of the COE treaty.
Treaties address principally international cooperation and in this case, the Convention also has provisions on offenses and procedural authorities that member states should implement. And as I mentioned, these human rights and international cooperation provisions also afford a range of objections and refusals when authoritarian countries ask for cooperation in illegitimate investigations. Treaties do not have provisions to “punish” member states which flout the human rights provisions. Instead, refusals and political pressure through a Conference of State Parties (the “COSP,” still to be established) are the avenues to shape the application of the treaty domestically. The future of the UN Convention and its utility to practitioners is still to be determined. However, it’s surely premature to declare it a definitive threat to human rights.
Some countries take a restrictive view of free expression and may criminalize speech in ways that would not be permissible in the United States. A country might define crimes in its domestic law that impinge on free speech as understood in rights-respecting legal systems. But that approach has no legal basis in the Convention, and the Convention does not require other countries to cooperate in enforcing laws that violate free-expression rights. Therefore, it is mistaken to claim that the Convention’s cooperation tools for “serious crime” invite domestic laws that criminalize free speech or enable abusive international cooperation requests.
A similar, broader serious-crime provision already exists in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC). Countries have years of experience handling evidence requests under UNTOC across a wide range of lawful and legitimate criminal investigations. Unlike UNTOC, the Cybercrime Convention’s serious-crime provision is limited to obtaining and sharing properly predicated electronic evidence. Today, electronic evidence is often generated by criminal conduct that is not fairly described as “cybercrime,” and that evidence may be located anywhere in the world. Without a mechanism for requesting international assistance to obtain electronic evidence, the Convention would be significantly weakened as a practical treaty for investigators and prosecutors.
Importantly, nothing in the Convention requires a country to provide cooperation where the conduct under investigation is not a crime under its own law; the request fails necessity or proportionality standards; or the request does not satisfy applicable human rights protections. The Convention also preserves legal safeguards—including dual criminality checks, human-rights refusals, and public policy exceptions—that rights-respecting countries can use to reject foreign investigations that violate civil liberties, including free speech.
Aren’t these the same jokers who want global gun control? There are reasons we have the second amendment. This would be a sterling example of those very reasons.
It's terrible! How can we explain that our own elected officials are responsible for this impact on Western civilization?