Cyber War and International Law: Concluding Remarks at the 2012 Naval War College International Law Conference

• Author: Yoram Dinstein
• Position: Professor Emeritus, Tel Aviv University, Israel
• Pages: 276-287

International Law Studies 2013

276

T

Cyber War and International Law:

Concluding Remarks at the 2012

Naval War College International

Law Conference

Yoram Dinstein*

I. INTRODUCTION

ruth to tell, I am more than a little bothered and bewildered by the di-

rection taken in a considerable portion of the papers submitted to the con-

ference and in the deliberations that ensued.

Why bewildered? The problem may be semantic, but when I was invit-

ed to participate in a conference on “cyber war,” I fully expected—as a

layperson in the cyber sphere of activities—to encounter difficulties in de-

coding a specialized experts’ jargon with which I am not closely acquainted.

Indeed, when the first speaker mentioned clouds, I thought that he was

talking about inclement weather. When another participant talked about

malware, it sounded to me like a reference to a breach of the dress code.

What really surprised me, however, was that so many participants—while

displaying the most intimate familiarity with the “cyber” vocabulary—were

apparently stymied by the concept of “war.”

I should have thought that, for the military at least, the expression,

“war,” is largely a no-brainer. Should it not have been self-evident to every

person present that war postulates an armed conflict? Yet, panelist after

panelist—even among those associated with United States Cyber Com-

* Professor Emeritus, Tel Aviv University, Israel.