d'Aspremont: Cyber Operations and International Law: An Interventionist Legal Thought

Jean d'Aspremont (Univ. of Manchester - Law; Univ. of Amsterdam - Law) has posted Cyber Operations and International Law: An Interventionist Legal Thought (Journal of Conflict & Security Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article argues that the international legal scholarship grappling with cyber operations can be understood as a form of interventionism. Such literature reads as an attempt by international lawyers to intervene in the problems of the world by stretching existing legal frameworks like the United Nations Charter to address what they see as dangerous legal gaps. This article sheds light on the four key argumentative patterns around which such scholarly interventionism is commonly articulated: problem-finding, administrativist camouflage, consequentialist bending, and evidentiary pragmatism. In doing so, attention is paid to the limitations of interventionism, especially at the evidentiary stage. Mention is also made of the alternative argumentative patterns into which international lawyers are pushed because of the evidentiary challenges they face in relation to the management of cyber operations through the United Nations Charter. This article ultimately argues that many of the legal problems faced by those interventionist international lawyers who want to address problems of cyber operations through existing international legal frameworks are self-inflicted.