certain implementing domestic legislation, to carry out legal reviews of new weapons, means and methods of warfare, or to take measures to protect civilians against the effects of attacks.80 41. The relationship between cyber operations and armed conflict can be one of two kinds. First, cyber operations may occur as part of an ongoing armed conflict. If such operations have a sufficient nexus with the conflict (e.g., they are conducted in conjunction with or in support of traditional kinetic military operations during an existing conflict), they are governed by IHL. 42. Second, resorting to cyber operations may bring an armed conflict into existence. In this regard, IHL distinguishes between two types of armed conflict: international armed conflict, and non-international armed conflict. An international armed conflict comes to existence ‘whenever there is a resort to armed force between States’.81 In Costa Rica’s view, this includes the use of cyber operations by one State against another State, as long as those operations have effects comparable to classic kinetic operations.82 For example, a cyber operation by one State designed or expected to cause an industrial facility located in another State to catch fire, resulting in human and material loss, could bring into existence an international armed conflict as defined under Article 2 common to the Geneva Conventions and such cyber operation would be subject to IHL. 43. A non-international armed conflict exists if there is ‘protracted armed violence between governmental authorities and organized armed groups or between such groups within a State’.83 In theory, such conflicts may be initiated by the use of cyber operations between these actors.84 However, in practice, the required threshold of intensity is unlikely to be reached by cyber operations alone. For example, a single cyber operation by a non-State group that disrupts, or damages critical infrastructure would normally not amount in and of itself to a non-international armed conflict and would therefore not be governed by IHL. Established international legal principles of IHL 44. Costa Rica agrees with the global consensus on the significance and applicability of the established international legal principles of IHL, which include the principles of humanity, necessity, distinction, and proportionality.85 45. The principles of humanity and military necessity underlie and inform the entire normative framework of IHL. All rules of IHL reflect a careful balance between these two principles, which in turn inform the interpretation of these rules. The two principles also impose limits beyond ICRC, ‘When does international humanitarian law apply to the use of information and communications technologies?’ (March 2023), fn. 12. 81 ICTY, Tadić Decision on the Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction, 1995, para. 70. 82 ICRC, Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention, 2020, commentary on common Article 2, para. 288. 83 ICTY, Tadić Decision on the Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction, 1995, para. 70. 84 Tallinn Manual 2.0 (n 4), Rule 83, para. 2, at 385–386. 85 GGE 2015 Report (n 1), para. 28(d); GGE 2021 Report (n 1), para. 71(f); OEWG 2022 Annual Progress Report (n 1), para. 15(b)(ii). 80 12