EU Statement – UN Open-ended Working Group on Security and ICT: Norms, International Law and Confidence Building Measures

Rules, Norms and principles of Responsible State Behaviour

1. Thank you Chair.
2. I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.
3. The Candidate Countries North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova, the country of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidate Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Georgia and Monaco align themselves with this statement.
4. Being respectful of and guided from international law, rules, norms and principles of responsible state behaviour are key to maintaining international peace, security and stability. Consequently, enhancing our common understanding about these rules, norms and principles and advancing their concrete implementation should be at the core of our common efforts.
5. We should make a common effort to implement all 11 norms, and work together to provide additional guidance to advance their implementation, elaborating on the conclusions and recommendation agreed in prior OEWG and UNGGE reports.
6. In this regard, para 8 should includ a clear reference to the existing 11 norms of responsible state behaviour, as agreed by all UN Member States. There should be no confusion about the repeated consensus support for the UN framework of responsible state behaviour. 
7. As indicated by the Chair, there is a varying level of support from States to proposals made and outlined under this section. This means that the introduction of proposals should be consistent. For instance, “a” should be States “could consider”. We also believe that there is more support to use the National Survey Implementation – which was agreed by consensus in 2021 – then to developing common understanding on ICT terms, which is a recent divisive proposal by some States. The current wording and ordering is unbalanced and does not do justice to the work of the international community thus far.
8. Regarding the recommendations suggested by the Chair:
9. Indeed the OEWG should continue exchanging views with the aim of developing common understandings on rules, norms and principles of responsible State behaviour in the use of ICTs. Recommendations should however clarify that this common understanding will facilitate the implementation, rather than the OEWG in itself.
10. We note the working paper that has already been submitted to the first and second OEWG and the UN GGE on the establishment of the Programme of Action, containing concrete proposals for activities and funding facilitating the implementation of the rules, norms and principles.
11. We should first focus on our common work as regards our understanding on the implementation on the existing norms and the necessary steps to do so, before we start developing new norms. Secondly, some of the proposals of the 2021 list are not considered as new norms but rather further guidance to the existing norms.
12. Rather than focusing on a list of proposals submitted at the last OEWG, we suggest to recommend organising focused discussions on existing norms, to discuss guidance for their implementation and invite participants to make in depth proposals.
13. We should focus on enhancing a common understanding of what activities are needed to implement norms and providing guidance to capacity building efforts globally. Initiating discussion on terminology would not only divert us but also would be time consuming at the expense of concrete discussions on the implementation of norms. We request deleting the “common understanding on ICT terms”.
14. In addition, we see duplication between the National Survey of Implementation, as contained in the recommendation of the 2021 OEWG report, which feed the discussions on norms implementation, and identify the opportunities to better support states in their endeavours and submitting new working papers on development of guidance and checklists, and recommend to use work done to date rather than creating duplicating initiatives and efforts.
15. The EU supports to explore to merge the two recommendations (2 and 3) in order to combine providing norms guidance and exchanging best practices as regards their implementation, and identifying the concrete activities that capacity building projects, in order to enhance common understanding.
16. For instance,  in the OEWG’s efforts to share best practices as regards norms implementation, regional organisations could be encouraged to participate, in view of their efforts such as the developed roadmap by ASEAN Member States.
17. As said, the combination of enhancing our common understanding on norms, providing norms guidance and exchanging best practices as regards their implementation, and identifying the concrete activities would allow to make concrete progress over the coming year.

International Law

1. We welcome the international law section, noting at the same time it is important to underline that we are not starting from scratch, and the international community has achieved much.
2. The EU and its Member States in this context strongly support the paper presented by Switzerland and Canada, which outlines a proper agenda for our discussions on international law.
3. In this light, we welcome the revised draft report to take forward the discussion on the application of international humanitarian law, including but not limited to its main principles. However, the draft report fails to reflect appropriately a crucial element that we are now taking forward discussion on, i.e how international law applies. We therefore to reflect it, notably under recommendation 3.
4. Furthermore, we welcome the opportunities to be briefed by relevant experts in an OEWG session. The international Committee of the Red Cross should also be clearly included.
5. In addition, we do not see the added value of limiting the participation of regional organizations in Para 9 (c.). For instance, OAS has been very active on developing questionnaire on the application of international law to gather their MS views. We are the one that would benefits from such efforts. 
6. We strongly caution against putting premature and divisive discussions on our agenda. In particular, the proposal to discuss additional legally binding obligations is premature, even not realistic, in light of the repeated condemnation of some States breaching international law and not adhering to the norms of responsible behaviour in cyberspace, certainly in 2023. Moreover a discussion on additional binding obligations should not precede the conclusion on discussions on and implementation of the application of international law and potential gaps in this regards.

Confidence Building Measures

1. Also as regards the section on confidence building measures, we can express our support to the Chair, and congratulate the Chair and his team on the good reflection of discussions and solid recommendations on the way forward.
2. We also welcome the efforts by other states, notably Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Israel, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Netherlands and Singapore, in putting forward concrete proposals as regards CBMs, including on awareness raising as well as the points of contact. 
3. The EU welcomes the proposed recommendations, notably to establish a global point of contacts directory among states and relevant international and regional organizations, which will allow to reduce risks stemming from the use of ICTs and to make concrete progress on advancing international security and stability.
4. We also welcome the inclusion of other stakeholders as a crucial element noting the responsibility of all stakeholders to reduce misinterpretation and contribute to confidence building in cyberspace. However, we do not see a need to limit to topics to “foster confidence building”, which is rather vague and does not capture the role of stakeholders in the implementation of CBMs. We suggest to go back to previous wording.
5. We encourage the Chair to start in depth discussions, and note that such discussion on recommendations could be taking in conjunction with the ones that focus more on norms implementation, notably those related to ensuring the integrity of the supply chain, preventing malicious uses of ICTs tools and techniques, preventing the use of harmful hidden functions and the sharing of current threat information, including because of the pertinent interlink.
6. The EU, being part of multiple regional discussions on CBM, is happy to exchange upon its experiences, and we welcome the concrete recommendation on the role of regional and sub-regional organizations in this context, as well as will continue to engage to share bets practices in our discussion. However, we do not support the addition of “where appropriate”. Regional organisations have been at the forefront of developing and implementing confidence-building measures.