448 DENMARK It should also be noted that international law does not regulate all cross border cyber activities undertaken by States. Some cyber acts might be unfriendly, or even hostile, but not as such regulated by international law and will accordingly be subject to policy considerations. 2 Sovereignty Sovereignty denotes each State’s authority to exercise within its territory the functions of a State, to the exclusion of any other State. Denmark is of the view that sovereignty is not only a principle but a primary rule of international law a breach of which amounts to an internationally wrongful act and if attributable to a State it may give rise to State responsibility. Denmark shares the view that sovereignty applies to States’ cyber activities as has been widely endorsed by other States who have voiced their national positions on international law in cyberspace. Sovereignty has both an internal and external dimension. Internal sovereignty signifies the independent right of a State to exercise the functions of a State in regard to a given territory to the exclusion of any other State. It pertains to a State’s jurisdiction over all persons, entities, and objects within its territory and some manifestations of the State outside its territory. It follows that all States may exercise sovereignty over any cyber infrastructure located on their territory and all activities associated with that infrastructure – irrespective of whether such infrastructure or activity is of a public or private character. In the exercise of governmental authority, the State may promulgate and enforce domestic laws or protect cyber infrastructure and cyber activity located or taking place in its territory unless prohibited from doing so by its international legal obligations such as the limitations set out in international human rights conventions and international law on State and diplomatic immunity. A State’s internal sovereignty also encompasses an obligation for the State not to allow its territory to be used for acts contrary to the rights of other States (as further elaborated under section 6 on due diligence). External sovereignty pertains to the international equal rights and duties of a State in its relations to other States. It derives from the principle of sovereign equality of States as recognized in article 2(1) of the UN Charter and requires all States to respect the territorial integrity and political independence of other States. Other principles and rules of international law such as the prohibition of the use of force, the prohibition on intervention, and the right of self-defence are based on this principle. As sovereignty is a primary rule under international law States are obliged to respect the sovereignty of other States and must not conduct activities that Downloaded from Brill.com 03/27/2024 10:42:51AM via Open Access. This is an open access article distributed under the terms Nordic Journal of International Law 92 (2023) 446–455 of the CC BY 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/