•
Germany also would like to express its strong support for the importance of International
Humanitarian Law (IHL) as expressed in paragraph 25.
•
Paragraph 27 correctly mentions that questions on how international humanitarian law
applies to cyberspace were raised. However, we would suggest to include an explicit
reference to the well-established principles of “humanity, necessity, proportionality and
distinction” in this paragraph – as this was already part of the 2015 GGE report (para 28 (d)
therein) and would emphasize existing consensus.
•
Germany supports the view expressed in Paragraph 30 that, “a first step to further develop
common understandings could be increased exchanges on their interpretation of how
international law applies to the use of ICTs by States.”
•
Germany does not see the need to develop additional instruments or a new legal framework,
as suggested by some member states (Paragraph 28).
•
Regarding paragraph 31, Germany would like to emphasize that the focus of the OEWG
should be on enhancing existing norms and improving their understanding and
implementation. In this regard we consider the proposals to protect the public core of the
internet, not to disrupt the infrastructure essential to political processes, not to harm
medical facilities and to highlight transnational infrastructure as useful additions to the
already existing norms on the protection of critical infrastructure as contained in the 2015
GGE report.
•
Germany is of the view that, the application of the international rules on State responsibility
and hence the act of formally attributing a malicious cyber operation to a State under
international law is first and foremost a national prerogative. As this view was also expressed
during the debates, Germany would be grateful if this point could be reflected in Paragraph
32.
•
Germany is open to extending the OEWG /establishing a new OEWG for another year. In
particular this would give us more time to discuss the issues in relation to a regular
institutional dialogue that are mentioned in paragraph 62 and allow us to take into account
the proceedings of the current GGE while deliberating on this issue.
•
Germany would also suggest changing the suggested draft language in Paragraph 65, which
appears to present a weaker standpoint on multistakeholder participation than that
previously agreed to by the UN membership. This should be replaced with language which
strongly supports multistakeholder participation. The language from the 2015 report of the
GGE (A/70/174), which received UN consensus adoption in 2015 via Resolution 70/237 could
serve as the basis for this.
I hope that these suggestions will be of use in the preparation of the final draft report by the Chair.