Conceptual Political and Formal Legal Analysis of the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace and Russian Initiatives in the Field of International Law

Abstract

The state of international security in the modern world directly depends on the security of cyberspace. The authors of the paper explore cybersecurity initiatives, considering their most significant legal and political aspects. The paper contains a scientific and expert assessment of the document adopted on November 12, 2018 the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace. Given that Russia leads in initiatives in international formats for discussing cybersecurity issues, the authors of the paper turn to the Russian position on a number of key issues within this framework, indicating that the proposals of the Russian side are ahead of many other international initiatives, in particular in terms of their regulatory potential.The authors conclude that confidence-building measures between states in the absence of binding international legal norms are deprived of an instrumental role in resolving many security problems in rapidly changing cyberspace. A prerequisite for effective international law-making in the field of information security is a dialogue between lawyers, politicians and technical experts.