context. For instance, malicious cyber-operations seriously compromising healthcare systems or national elections are capable of amounting to unlawful interventions. 10. Unlawful interventions should be distinguished from lawful forms of influence and pressure on states, such as lobbying governments or unfriendly acts. Likewise, they do not include countermeasures permitted under international law to induce a state to comply with its obligations on foot of an internationally wrongful act. Principle of Due Diligence 11. The principle of due diligence derives from the principle of sovereignty. International law requires that a state may not knowingly allow its territory to be used for acts contrary to the rights of other states.6 12. Ireland considers the due diligence principle to be a primary rule of international law. Therefore, a breach of this international obligation, which is attributable to a state, engages state responsibility. For instance, the ICJ in the Corfu Channel case held that “nothing was attempted by the Albanian authorities to prevent the disaster. These grave omissions involve the international responsibility of Albania”.7 Similarly, in the Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo case, the ICJ found that Uganda was responsible “for any lack of vigilance preventing violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law by other actors present in the occupied territory, including rebel groups acting on their own account”.8 13. Due diligence is a standard of conduct and not of result. What the scope of the obligation might entail is context specific.9 In the cyber context, the principle of due diligence requires at a minimum that a state take all measures that are feasible in the circumstances to put an end to cyber-operations conducted from its territory or by persons within its jurisdiction that affect a right of, and produce serious adverse consequences for, other states.10 In determining what is feasible in the circumstances, relevant factors include the capacity of the state concerned, the seriousness of the operations as well as the extent to which the state concerned has knowledge of the operations. Ireland considers that constructive knowledge, often described as a situation where a state “ought to have been aware”, is capable of satisfying the knowledge component of the obligation of due diligence where this can be ascertained to an appropriate level. 6 Corfu Channel Case (UK v Albania) ICJ Reports 1949, p.22. Corfu Channel, p.23. 8 Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda), Judgment, ICJ Reports 2005, p. 168, [179]. 9 See: Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro) Judgment (2007) ICJ Rep 43, [429]. 10 Tallinn Manual 2.0, Rule 7. 7