44CON 2019

Traditional mechanisms of international rule-making have failed to drive forward globally accepted norms of responsible behaviour in cyberspace. The private-sector led initiatives that have sprung up in their place thus far fail to consider how threats to state powers and control will be contained. The only way to break that current impasse is by way of new ways of working.

The presentation will make the case for a model of multilateral collaboration, de facto outsourcing responsibility for international cyber norms development to a differently incentivised private sector while ensuring states maintain responsibility for norms enforcement.

It will test the assumption that a model of this kind has not yet been successfully applied, assessing three recent cyber norms initiatives – Cybersecurity Tech Accord; Charter of Trust; Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace – against five factors before drawing practically focused conclusions, looking at the success factors for adoption of the proposed multilateral collaboration model, and setting out how business and government practices would have to change.