Prof. Tim McCormack: "Cyber Warfare & the Tallinn Manual 2.0"

Image

Prof Tim McCormack is the Special Adviser on International Humanitarian Law to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the Dean of the University of Tasmania Law School. He is also a Professorial Fellow of the Melbourne Law School and the 2018 New Zealand Law Foundation Distinguished Visiting Fellow. Tim was a Fulbright Senior Fellow, James Barr Ames Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School (January 2016) and Charles H Stockton Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island (2015-2016). He was also a member of the International Group of Experts responsible for drafting the Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations (Tallinn 2.0) (2015-2017) and will speak to us from his experiences in the Estonian capital.

The Tallinn Manual 2.0 is the most comprehensive analysis of how existing international law applies to cyber operations. It is founded on the understanding that pre-cyber international law applies to cyber operations, both conducted by and directed against States. It follows from this that cyber events do not occur in a legal vacuum and thus States have both rights and bear obligations under international law. Whereas the original Tallinn Manual focused on cyber operations that violate the prohibition of the use of force, the Tallinn Manual 2.0 adds a legal analysis of the more common cyber incidents that states encounter on a day-to-day basis, and that fall below the thresholds of the use of force or armed conflict.