OEWG
Cybersecurity is a human rights issue. Human rights defenders, groups that are subject to discrimination, and journalists, among others, rely on the internet to exercise their rights. An open, secure, stable and rights-based internet can only be ensured with the involvement of all stakeholders.
Global cyber governance, including the protection of a secure and stable cyberspace, cannot be limited to any one actor. Therefore, an inclusive approach to maintaining peace and stability in cyberspace is needed, as emphasised by the organisations who jointly submitted this feedback to the OEWG.
APC welcomes this opportunity to address the United Nations Open-ended Working Group and to participate in this informal dialogue with stakeholders. We urge a rights-based and inclusive approach to understanding threats in cyberspace.
From APC’s perspective, we feel it’s important to integrate cybersecurity in our broader work on internet governance capacity building, because cybersecurity touches on so many other areas of internet governance.
This statement focuses on responding to the question: How can non-governmental stakeholders contribute to the implementation of the voluntary non-binding norms of responsible state behaviour contained in the report of the 2015 Group of Governmental Experts?
The 14 civil society organisations supporting this statement, including APC, stress that cybersecurity includes the protection of human rights, and cybersecurity-related laws, policies and practices should not be used as a pretext to violate human rights.
Created in late 2018 by the UN General Assembly, the Open Ended Working Group on developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security aims to broaden the dialogue on cybersecurity among member states, and to a certain extent, other stakeholders.
APC welcomes this opportunity to address the OEWG and participate in this informal dialogue with stakeholders. APC and its members are increasingly concerned about state security-centric approaches to cybersecurity policy and the exclusion of civil society from cybersecurity efforts.
