Lecture 'Sovereignty, Belligerency and Cyberspace'

On November 18 the lecture 'Sovereignty, Belligerency and Cyberspace' by Professor Pål Wrange (University of Stockholm) will be held at HSE University.

About the speaker:

Pål Wrange (Ph.D, LL.M) is professor of public international law at Stockholm University and director of the Stockholm Centre for International Law and Justice (www.scil.se). He is a former principal legal advisor at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and a former political advisor to the European Union’s Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region. Dr. Wrange has published widely on international law, international relations and theory and has consulted on international criminal justice and peace-building. He has held visiting positions at i.a. Harvard Law School, European University Institute and the University of Melbourne. 

Abstract:

This talk will discuss how intrusive (hacking) cyber espionage in peacetime is legally justified, in particular by US governmental sources. In their reading, “cyberspace” has become a virtual "space" of exception from the usual peacetime rules of respect for sovereignty. Given the ubiquitous and interlinked nature of “cyberspace”, exceptions previously applicable only in war, or in other hostile relations, have now de facto become the rule, and states have sought ways to rationalise and justify that, without openly flouting the established categories of war, peace and sovereignty. In the US, it has occurred through a very limited conception of sovereignty (sovereignty as a non-binding principle). This leaves much of “cyberspace” in a legal no-mans land, or more adequately, a free-for-all-land, in which states can almost search and manipulate data on computers in foreign states without much consequence. This very limited conception of territorial sovereignty is related to the metaphorical spatialization of the Internet as a new "domain", a "cyberspace", rather than as a network of hardware located in interlinked but still separate national jurisdictions.

Start time: 18.10

Address: 3 Bolshoy Trekhsvyatitelsky per., room 311 (3-d floor)

If you need a pass to enter the building, please, send by e-mail your surname and name to Tatyana Zhukova: tzhukova@hse.ru and please, do not forget to bring your passport or ID to the event.