A/76/136
I. Introduction
1.
On 22 December 2018, the General Assembly adopted resolution 73/266, in
which it requested the Secretary-General, with the assistance of a group of
governmental experts, to be established in 2019 on the basis of equitable geographical
distribution, proceeding from the assessments and recommendations contained in the
reports of previous Groups of Governmental Experts, to continue to study, with a view
to promoting common understandings and effective implementation, possible
cooperative measures to address existing and potential threats in the sphere of
information security, including norms, rules and principles of responsible behaviour
of States, confidence-building measures and capacity-building, as well as how
international law applies to the use of information and communications technologies
(ICTs) by States, and to submit a report on the results of the study, including an annex
containing national contributions of participating governmental experts on the subject
of how international law applies to the use of ICTs by States, to the Assembly at its
seventy-sixth session.
2.
The Group of Governmental Experts established pursuant to the abovementioned resolution adopted its report by consensus on 28 May 2021. In
paragraph 73 of the Group’s report (A/76/135), it is stated that, in accordance with
the Group’s mandate, an official compendium of voluntary national contributions of
participating governmental experts on the subject of how international law applies to
the use of ICTs by States will be made available on the website of the Office for
Disarmament Affairs.
3.
The voluntary national contributions referred to in paragraph 2 above have been
submitted by the respective participating governmental experts and are contained in
section II of the present document. The contributions are made available in the
language of submission only.
II. Voluntary national contributions of participating
governmental experts on the subject of how international
law applies to the use of information and communications
technologies by States
Australia
[Original: English]
Australia welcomes the opportunity to submit its national contribution on the
subject of how international law applies to the use of information and
communications technologies (ICT) by States as an annex to the report of the UN
Group of Governmental Experts, as requested by the UN General Assembly in
Resolution 73/266 (2019).
The international community recognises that existing international law – and in
particular the UN Charter in its entirety – is applicable to State conduct in cyberspace
and is essential to maintaining peace and stability and promoting an open, secure,
peaceful and accessible ICT environment. This is reflected in the 2013 and 2015
reports of the UN Group of Governmental Experts on Cyber (UN GGE) and the 2021
report of the UN Open Ended Working Group on Cyber (UN OEWG). The 2021
OEWG Report called upon States to avoid and refrain from taking any measures not
in accordance with international law, and in particular the Charter of the United
Nations, and concluded that further common understandings need to be developed on
how international law applies to State use of ICTs.
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