By Joan Barata
After two years of intense negotiations, the new United Nations (UN) Convention on “Strengthening international cooperation for combating certain crimes committed by means of information and communications technology systems and for the sharing of evidence in electronic form of serious crimes” (also known as the Cybercrime Convention) was adopted by consensus by all member states on August 8, 2024. The adoption was preceded by a final two-week round of conversations within the Ad Hoc Committee in New York.
This new UN treaty was initially proposed by Russia in 2017 and has been particularly promoted by countries willing to build a system alien to the protections granted by most relevant international human rights instruments, including Belarus, China, Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, Nicaragua, North Korea or Cuba.
Even though tackling cybercrime could be seen as a very technical and legalistic matter, the discussions have progressively attracted the attention of several human rights experts and civil society organizations due to the growing concern around the impact that the adoption of such instrument would have on journalists, whistleblowers, activists, IT and security professionals as well as IT-reliant industries in general.
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Joan Barata is a Senior Legal Fellow for The Future of Free Speech. He works on freedom of expression, media regulation, and intermediary liability issues.