An Extraterritorial Human Right to Cybersecurity

Abstract

Recent state-sponsored cyber operations against private-sector entities have increasingly become prejudicial not only to the computer systems and networks of these targets, but also to the national security interests of the nations affected. While international law protects many of the state interests that go hand in hand with the national security interest, it does little to protect the immediate targets of these cybersecurity incidents, namely individuals and private-sector actors. This shared vulnerability between private-sector actors and the state has long been recognized in scholarship and practice as the problem of “reciprocal security vulnerability.” This Article offers the first analysis and consideration of the reciprocal security vulnerability problem in light of a different body of law – international human rights law. This Article argues that many of the challenges arising from foreign state-sponsored cyber operations can and should be addressed through a recourse to and development of an extraterritorial application of international human rights law and the advancement of a human right to cybersecurity.

Keywords: cybersecurity, human rights, cyberspace law, international law