The ESCWA Cyber Legislation Digest 1.0 Executive Summary This digest aims to inform its readers about ESCWA’s cyber legislation initiative specifically those activities relating to the Harmonization Project. In 2007, ESCWA launched its cyber legislation initiative. This resulted in a set of activities that served to regularize the approach for implementing cyber legislation in the Arab world, at the national and regional levels. This initiative focused on a project called ‘The Regional Harmonization of Cyber Legislation to Promote the Knowledge Society in the Arab World’. In this digest, this project is referred to as the ‘Harmonization Project’ and covers all ESCWA activities from 2007 to present. The approach taken by ESCWA in this project was based on a deep involvement with key stakeholders: legal country representatives, ICT consultants, representatives of various international organizations and other concerned bodies. It was through such collaboration that ESCWA developed the cyber legislation templates and directives, which are currently being implemented in various ESCWA member countries. Having assessed the status of cyber legislation in the region, ESCWA started by developing a document called the ‘Models for Cyber Legislation’. This document provided a situational analysis of cyber legislation in the member states of ESCWA, and made recommendations on how to address and implement cyber legislation. ESCWA then developed six templates for the definition of cyber legislation. These templates identify general areas of concern that should be addressed by every country embarking on introducing robust cyber legislation and regulations, and consist of a set of headings broken down hierarchically. The templates serve as a model for the analysis of cyber legislation in each country and as a tool for developing legislation where it is lacking. ESCWA used the templates to evaluate cyber legislation in Bahrain and in Syria. Based on the model and the templates, ESCWA developed six directives. Each directive addresses a key issue in cyber legislation, such as e-Communication, Freedom of Expression, Cybercrime, etc. For each directive, ESCWA analyzed the situation in the Arab region, defined the scope of issues addressed by the directive and most importantly, developed a proposed set of Sections and Articles to be used in the drafting of cyber legislation. To support its cyber legislation activities, ESCWA developed a cyber legislation portal. It also developed and launched a virtual network for the ongoing support of cyber legislation stakeholders in the Arab region. Building on these outputs, the digest presents a set of recommendations for continuing efforts to improve cyber legislation in the ESCWA region. Finally, the digest summarizes the process and methodology ESCWA used in developing and implementing the cyber legislation initiative. 1