United Nations Convention against Cybercrime, 2024 – the Outcome of «Cyber Compromise»?

INTRODUCTION. Today the international legal regime of cyberspace is in need of more accurate, additional regulation, since there are some particular aspects, such as cybercrime, where there is no universal legal source of law (i.e. international treaty). According to the author’s opinion, the artificial prolongation of the negotiation process can be justified by the desire of certain states to «master» a new territory of international law in advance, while being guided by the provisions of domestic legal regulation. For a long time the international community at the UN level had no mechanisms of influence on illegal activities in this domain. Thus, the number of cybercrimes committed in cyberspace was rapidly increasing, since cybercriminals resorted to the anonymity of this space. The recognition by states as primary subjects of international law of the growing problem of cybercrimes in the absence of the valid universal source of international law more than twenty years later led to the creation of the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime; Strengthening International Cooperation for Combating Certain Crimes Committed by Means of Information and Communications Technology Systems and for the Sharing of Evidence in Electronic Form of Serious Crimes, 2024.

MATERIALS AND METHODS. This article is based on the references to the works of Russian and foreign specialists studying new provisions of the UN Convention against Cybercrime, 2024, as well as some theoretical issues in the field of international criminal law, devoted to the problem of application by states of the so-called «principle of active jurisdiction» and “principle of passive (personality) jurisdiction”. In addition to general, basic research methods such as analysis, synthesis, induction and deduction, the author uses special research methods, such as comparative legal method for a comprehensive study of the international legal position of states on the issue of cybercrime. The subject of this study is international relations of the UN member states related to cooperation in suppressing and combating cybercrimes.

RESEARCH RESULTS. As a result of the study, the author identifies two main problematic aspects of the implementation of the document: 1) passive personality jurisdiction, and 2) the issue related to the protection of personal data. There is a probability that instead of the stated goals of the UN member states to fight crimes, committed in cyberspace, the main efforts of these actors will be aimed at the right to construe the provisions of the Convention against Cybercrime, guided by the norms of domestic legislation.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. The current legal tendency is that the rules of the legal regime of cyberspace are dictated not only by states as the main subjects of international law, but by leading IT companies and private organizations asserting the right to autonomous regulation with only minimal participation of states as well as international organizations. Despite the fact that the UN Convention against Cybercrimes has been adopted, each state perceived its final goal differently when drafting the text of the document. Some states remain skeptical and suppose that the final convention has certain legal lacunae and thus prefer to use the 2001 Budapest Convention to combat cybercrimes.

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