On 30 July, ELAC and its Programme for International Peace and Security (IPS) hosted a session at this year’s RightsCon Online. Our panel, ‘It’s Not Just About Big Tech: Online Harm and International Law’, covered states’ duties to prevent halt and redress a range of malicious cyber operations – from online hate speech to disinformation, digital surveillance and electoral interference, and had over 300 registered participants around the world.
Moderated by our Research Fellow Talita Dias and our Research Assistant Tsvetelina van Benthem, the session featured a stellar line-up of speakers who shared their unique insights into the topic – Antonio Coco (ELAC Visiting Fellow) discussed ELAC’s cyber due diligence project; Agnès Callamard (UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Director of Columbia University’s Global Freedom of Expression initiative and Executive Director for ARTICLE 19), who talked about the danger of public-private collusion in unlawful instances of digital surveillance; Jan Neutze (Senior Director for Digital Diplomacy & Head of the Cybersecurity & Democracy Team of Microsoft), who stressed the need for multistakeholder approaches and clarity in the application of rules and norms to cyberspace; and Harold Hongju Koh (Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale and Former Legal Advisor to the US State Department), who highlighted the importance of articulating existing international protections against online electoral interference.
