The Future of International Cyberlaw: State Sovereignty Cannot Be the Driving Principle

By Nathaniel Clark 

Nathaniel Clark is a 2022 graduate of Albany Law School. Prior to attending law school, he earned his bachelor's degree from the University at Albany, State University of New York, where he majored in Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity and minored in Philosophy.

At Albany Law, Nate was a member of the Albany Law Review. He interned in a variety of offices while in law school, including the chambers of Magistrate Judge Christian F. Hummel of the Northern District of New York and the law firm of O’Connell & Aronowitz, P.C.

Nate, who just learned that he passed the bar exam, is currently working as an Assistant Appellate Court Attorney at the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department.

Cybercrime cost the world $6 trillion by the end of 2021, and will have cost $10.5 trillion by 2025. While a unified approach is required to effectively combat cybercrime, national positions on cybersecurity differ greatly. The current international framework addressing cybercrime, the Budapest Convention, is twenty years old, and significant international actors, such as China and Russia, are not signatories.

While the Budapest Convention is currently being updated by the European Council, the United Nations is drafting a new and comprehensive cybercrime treaty. At the center of the debate is the issue of state sovereignty and how it should play into international cyberlaw.

Russia, China, and other states strongly support a treaty protecting the sovereignty of states to autonomously regulate cyberspace within their own borders. But frameworks emphasizing state sovereignty ignore the borderless nature of cyberspace and cybercrime. Instead, the UN should adopt a treaty similar to the updated Budapest Convention, which contains provisions essential to fighting transnational cybercrime. 

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To read the full paper, click HERE.