Article

International law in cyberspace : the Koh speech and Tallinn Manual juxtaposed

Michael N. Schmitt

• Harvard international law journal, Vol. 54, December 2012, p. 13-37

English

Photocopies. - Source : http://www.harvardilj.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/HILJ-Online_54_Schmitt.pdf (last accessed on 06.02.2019)

At a conference sponsored by United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh offered brief answers to what he labeled the “fundamental questions” on how international law applies to cyberspace. He also identified several “unresolved questions” with which the United States would likely be forced to grapple in the future. Less than three weeks earlier, NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCD COE) had released a draft the long-awaited Tallinn Manual, due for formal publication in early 2013. The Manual is the product of a three-year project sponsored by the Centre in which an “International Group of Experts” examined, inter alia, the very issues cited in the Koh Speech. This article serves two purposes. First, it functions as a concordance between the positions articulated in the Koh speech and those found in the Tallinn Manual. The comparison is particularly apropos in light of the parallels in their content. Second, drawing on the Tallinn Manual, the article provides analytical granularity as to the legal basis for the positions proffered in the Koh Speech. In doing so, it usefully catalogues the various competing interpretive perspectives. The article is crafted around Mr. Koh’s “Questions and Answers,” which are reordered topically and set forth at the beginning of each section.

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