Comment Letter – UN Cybercrime Convention

Cybercrime: The UN secretary-general was tasked in 2019 with collecting views of Member States on the challenges that they faced in countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes. Common concerns regarding investigative co-operation, emerged from the report, namely:

* access to cross-border data and cloud storage
* slow mutual legal assistance processes
* the challenge of obtaining evidence, in particular working with the private sector
* differing legal statutes and definitions of crimes.

Some 5 years later and after many difficult negotiations a new UN Convention on Cybercrime was announced as a response to these concerns. It is a triumph of international negotiation, and is long overdue. It is the first anti crime Convention passed at the UN in over 20 years so it’s significance is obvious, especially when there is less international support for multilateralism these days. The Treaty was passed by the UN General Assembly in December 2024, without requiring a vote but has received support from the governments of the USA, the EU, the UK as well as from Russia, China and Iran. It will come into force 90 days after being ratified by the 40th Signatory, which is possible in 2025.

GCFFC Experts in a Comment Letter are raising awareness highlighting benefits and identifying concerns with the Treaty. The Chair of the GCFFC, John Cusack has stated that: “The GCCFC offers its conditional support to the UN Cybercrime Convention recognising the need for criminalising all forms of Cybercrime globally and more and better international co-operation in preventing and combatting Cybercrime. Nevertheless, States will and must differ on when and with whom to co-operate, which will limit increasing operation even in legitimate cases, and supporting countries should reflect that the aims of the Treaty to prevent and combat cybercrime is more likely to be achieved with more than international law enforcement co-operation, which includes involving the private sector and requires legal cross border information sharing gateways, with privacy safeguards to be expressly promoted, which are not yet provided for in the Convention but must find their way into subsequent protocols”. 

The GCFFC wishes to thank its Members for contributing to and in supporting the publication of this comment letter. In particular the GCFFC would like to recognise the expert contributions of Vivienne Artz, Samantha Beesley, John Cusack, Julia Chin, Louis DeKoker, Sean Doyle, Oleksiy Feshchenko, Pawee Jenweeranon, Xolisilie Khanyile, Nick Maxwell & Yulia Murat.