Waxman: Cyber-Attacks and the Use of Force: Back to the Future of Article 2(4)

Matthew C. Waxman (Columbia Univ. - Law) has posted Cyber-Attacks and the Use of Force: Back to the Future of Article 2(4). Here's the abstract:

Cyber-attacks pose difficult line-drawing problems, but we must avoid missing the strategic forest in thinking about the legal trees. Some problems of cyber-warfare for regulating force are at the same time novel yet familiar. Viewing these questions in the context of Cold War debates about the UN Charter and its prohibition of “force” reveals that although the technology of conflict – both in terms of capabilities and probable vulnerabilities – is changing in revolutionary ways, the issue that destructive potential is deliverable with non-military means is a repeating one. Proposals for legal reform should consider the particular features of new modes of conflict that make legal regulation difficult and the way legal interpretations inevitably create strategic winners and losers. Interpretations prohibitive of some types of cyber-activities can help check new forms of destructive power but only if those legal moves are themselves backed up with evolving power.