On June 8 2023, the EU Cyber Diplomacy Initiative – EU Cyber Direct, the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU and the European External Action Service invited members of the EU’s Horizontal Working Party on Cyber Issues, legal experts and officials from like-minded countries to a workshop on EU cyber diplomacy and international law. The main aims of the workshop were to understand how both EU, like-minded countries and other states view the application of international law in the cyber domain and how the various approaches to the applicability of international law at the UN level remain an arena for strengthening the framework for responsible state behaviour.
Legal scholars Marko Milanovic, Antonio Coco, and François Delerue delivered kick-off remarks corroborated by a briefing paper by Dr. Delerue. Participants were provided with a summary of the recent Tallinn Manual discussions as well as a general overview of the state of play at the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG).
Participants discussed national positions on international law or their process of crafting upcoming statements. They recognised areas of achievable convergence of a common EU position on international law in cyberspace, such as on the protection of democratic elections and healthcare services. Boosting cyber capacity building was acknowledged as a necessity to assist all states contribute to international and UN processes on cyber diplomacy.
