Estonia’s response to the OEWG zero draft, February 2021
sharing information and lessons learned, including through the Cyber Policy Portal of
UNIDIR (paragraph 75).
24. Estonia is supportive of the idea of States nominating national Points of Contact as it
would increase the effective implementation of CBMs regarding policy/diplomatic,
legal and technical questions (paragraph 76). We would also welcome continued
discussions of establishing a directory of such Points of Contact at the global level
and find a useful recommendation.
Capacity-building
25. Estonia fully supports the idea that all UN Member States need to build capacities to
identify and protect national critical infrastructure. To further enhance the section
and show that we are not starting from scratch, we suggest enhancing the section
with further concrete activities to reflect the three elements in capacity-building. As
such, we propose adding the following mention in paragraph 86 under “Process and
purpose”: “Capacity-building should be guided by the existing consensus reports of
the UN Group of Governmental Experts, notably the voluntary and non-binding
norms, confidence-building measures, and international law, as a way to help build
action-oriented measures in line with existing agreements.”
26. We support the inclusion of human rights and gender perspectives in capacity
building efforts and welcome the current text (paragraph 86, subsection “People”).
27. We welcome capacity-building being described as a “shared responsibility as well as a
reciprocal endeavour, a so called ‘two-way street’” as a useful encapsulation of the
spirit of cooperation in capacity building (paragraph 87).
Regular institutional dialogue
28. We support the inclusion of the Programme of Action initiative in the report
(paragraphs 99 and 112). Our discussions in the OEWG have made it clear that there
is a need for a process under the UN auspices that would be action-oriented and
inclusive, allowing also to engage all relevant stakeholders in the multi-stakeholder
community. We reiterate that the PoA initiative has been discussed widely within the
OEWG and as such it should continue to be included.
29. We could support the inclusion of the new OEWG group in this section but reiterate
that this should not preclude the PoA for fair inclusion as a recommendation. The
PoA should be reflected as a dedicated mechanism to follow up the implementation
of existing undertakings, while providing a periodic opportunity to assess whether
additional actions are necessary. For this reason, we consider it is important that the
PoA be reflected as part of this group’s achievements. We believe that the initiative
to establish the PoA, suggested by 48 States including Estonia, would allow to deliver
results many delegations have been calling for throughout the OEWG discussions:
helping to implement existing agreements, advancing capacity building and helping
to prevent conflict. We also note that the wide list of participants for the PoA across
regions means it cannot be considered as a national initiative but an international
proposal that could be one of the most actionable elements of the OEWG.
30. If necessary, we would welcome further discussions under the current OEWG on how
to reflect the PoA in the report in a way that also considers further discussions on its
modalities and would set conditions for its establishment in the near future.
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