July 31, 2024
Staff Report
LAHORE:
In an effort to reach a consensus, UN member states opened a two-week meeting on Monday, July 29, 2024, to discuss a treaty on cybercrime. The organisation has been engaging in discussions for many years to establish a legally binding international treaty to counter the threat of cybercrime. However, an unlikely alliance of human rights groups and big technology companies continues to oppose the text.
If passed, the treaty on the fight against cybercrime could become the first UN legal instrument on cybercrime.
The draft text will finally come up for a vote by member states at the end of the two-week session. “We’re at the entrance of the harbour, and on Friday August 9, we’ll be docking,” said committee chairwoman Faouzia Boumaiza Mebarki at Monday’s opening session.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights informed that some welcome improvements have been made to the draft. However, those opposing the treaty remain skeptical about significant shortcomings, with many provisions failing to meet international human rights standards.
According to the draft, the treaty aims to “prevent and combat cybercrime more efficiently and effectively” and to strengthen international cooperation, notably regarding child pornography and money laundering.
It also maintains that the convention would help in the exchange of evidence between jurisdictions relating to any crime with a digital evidence component.
But criticism of the convention abounds. Critics argue that it opposes human rights and that an international treaty has the potential to expand government regulation of online content and reshape law enforcement access to data in a way that could criminalise free expression and undermine privacy.
They say the draft treaty, comprising nine chapters and over 60 articles, does not address issues like data protection or the role of the private sector and civil society.
The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution in 2019 on “Countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes,” launching a process towards a new international treaty on cybercrime, and establishing an ad hoc committee to elaborate a “comprehensive international convention.”