The Tallinn Manual on the applicability of international norms to cyber warfare is essential in developing regulations in the cyber domain, said Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanović. He discussed related new challenges at the Tallinn-based NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence as part of his visit to Estonia yesterday.
“Tallinn Manual should be the first step in codifying cyber law. It is an icebreaker and fundamental in how we approach cyber incidents,” said the Milanović. The international community is in dire need of new norms to approach the cyber arena, said the prime minister. “As a lawyer myself, I wonder how international courts will approach these cases.”
“A majority of cyber incidents are below the threshold of an armed attack, as defined in international law. Therefore we have focused Tallinn 2.0, the new considerably updated and revised edition of the Tallinn Manual, on how existing international norms would deal with these lesser attacks,” explained Colonel Artur Suzik, Director of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence. The new manual will be published early next year with consultations being planned through 2015, explained Suzik.
The Tallinn-based NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence is a NATO-accredited multinational organisation dealing with research and development, education, consultation and lessons learned in the field of cyber security. The Centre’s mission is to enhance capability, cooperation and information sharing among NATO, Allies and Partners in cyber defence. The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare was written at the invitation of the Centre by an independent international group of experts and published by Cambridge University Press.