Cyber Conflicts: Principles of Just War

In this unit we are going to discuss the laws of foreign conflict, or the laws of war. The reason we need to understand is we need to see how they translate when we start talking about cyber warfare. Or how cyber warfare relates to these laws, so that we can start to understand how we can resolve the conflicts which are happening on the internet. There are two distinct domains in which the rights and laws of armed conflict apply in the actions of going to war. In the actions in a war, the principles that govern the right to go to war are also know as jus ad bellum, and the principles that govern the action of war are also known as jus in bello. Laws regarding war conduct are laid out in international law, mostly through what is known as international humanitarian law. International humanitarian law is reference to jus in bello, or acts within a war. International humanitarian law limit the effects of armed conflict and is made up of different laws which makes up a treaty that many of countries have signed. And the most important of which are probably the Geneva Convention Center additional protocols.

International Humanitarian Law is just a set of international agreements, many of which the US is a signatory to. In the US, according to Article 6 of the Constitution, international treaties and laws are part of US laws and therefore should be followed as such. The principle of jus ad bellum, on the other hand, fall under what is known as just war theory and are not necessarily explicitly laid out in international laws. Some jus ad bellum principles present in the Charter of the United Nations. For example, Article 2 states all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations. And article 51 states, nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations.

There are generally five recognized principals of jus ad bellum, we will cover them here and raise questions about how we may think about these principals in the context of cyber warfare. One reference to the notion that war should be waged by a proper and legitimate authority, following proper processes.

Now in the context of cyber warfare you may ask what is the legitimate authorities of cyber warfare? Cyber warfare is a covert warfare typically conducted by proxies of countries. Are the proxies of nation states legitimate? Would nation states ever agree that the entities committing their tax are the proxies? What if the proxies are operating outside of the country? These are some of the questions which make it challenging to apply that.

The second indicates that war must be waged with right intentions, motivated by just cause. What is a just cause in cyber space? Can a preemptive strike for national interest be justified? Again, an unanswered question. The probability of success must be determined. Efforts that cannot address the situation must be avoided.

Given the complexity of the technologies through which cyber-attack occurs, it is often difficult to make accurate assessment of the probability of success. It will be unclear if a counterattack is effective in deterring a current attack. Therefore, again, hard to apply the principle. Another principle refers to the notion that benefits of war must be proportional or worth the costs encountered, principally casualties. The concept of proportionality is based on assessment of damage, which often takes a long time to do in cyber warfare. Due to the need of immediate reaction, it is difficult to assure proportionality. Also cyber attacks at least up until now, are not usually encountered direct casualties, so I don't know how well it applies. War should, again, be waged as a last resort, only when diplomatic options have been exhausted. With ambiguity and attribution, diplomatic wrangling can often be tedious and long drawn, while need for response has urgency to repose the attack and minimize collateral damage.

So again, it's very hard to manage this. So these are a lot of unanswered questions that we have on how we can apply the international humanitarian law to cyber warfare. And as we go through this course further, we are going to discuss it and try to understand what the nuances of this are and we will debate in different cases as we study along with this. How we can start to understand this problem, how international law can start to apply with the problem of cyber warfare. Thank you.