33. Human rights of particular importance in the online environment include the freedoms of opinion, expression, information, and assembly, as well as the rights to privacy and nondiscrimination. Women have been particularly affected by cybercrime and other malicious cyber operations, including electronic surveillance, hate speech, doxing, cyber bullying, and harassment. Thus, Costa Rica reminds States of their obligations to respect, protect and ensure the rights of women online, including those laid down in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.68 Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how cyber operations may also affect the rights to life and health. 34. Most human rights are not absolute and thus subject to limitation in certain circumstances. In this regard, Costa Rica notes that measures to protect the rights of States and individuals in cyberspace may often clash with certain individual human rights and must be balanced against them. For instance, to tackle online disinformation, the rights to receive and impart information freely on the Internet may be limited. Costa Rica stresses that the test for assessing the lawfulness of such limitations generally requires States to assess whether the limitation is grounded in sufficiently clear and accessible laws (legality), fulfils a legitimate purpose (legitimacy), and is necessary and proportionate to achieve this aim (necessity and proportionality).69 This test must always be applied when the application of the rights and obligations discussed above implicates human rights online. Use of force 35. Under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter and its customary counterpart, States ‘shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state’. In Costa Rica’s view, a State uses force against another State if it causes damage to persons or property in the territory of another State. This is true whether or not the military or other armed forces are involved, and regardless of the level of intensity of any hostilities between the States involved. 36. As noted earlier, the prohibition on the use of force applies irrespective of the type of weapon employed by a State.70 Thus, a cyber operation may amount to a prohibited use of force if it can cause harm or destruction analogous to a conventional weapon.71 In Costa Rica’s view, this assessment is to be carried out on the basis of a comparison between the effects of a cyber operation and those of an operation carried out by conventional weapons that would constitute a prohibited use of force.72 Although this assessment can only be carried out on a case-by-case basis, examples of cyber operations likely amounting to a prohibited use of force include those causing physical harm to individuals or significant 68 UN General Assembly, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1981) 1249 UNTS 13. 69 E.g., UN Human Rights Council, ‘The right to privacy in the digital age: Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’, A/HRC/48/31, 13 September 2021, para. 8; UNGA, ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression’, A/67/357, 7 September 2012, para. 41. 70 Nuclear Weapons case (n 6), para. 39. 71 Tallinn Manual 2.0 (n 4), Rule 69, paras 8-9, at 333. 72 Ibid, Rule 69, para. 1, at 330. 10