Research pick: Rebooting the United Nations to avoid cyberwarfare - "Information and communication technology and cyber conflict: rethinking the role of the United Nations in world peace"

Information and communications technology (ICT) has always had a role in warfare by the broadest definition, from the rolled up scroll warning of advancing troops from the north, to the microdot-bearing carrier pigeon heading south, from the enigmatic encryption machines of World War to the technology of mutually assured destruction of the Cold War.

Of course, in the digital age of smartphones and tablet computers, the internet of things and remote sensors, ICT has an even sharper role to play. The concept of cyberwarfare has emerged into a reality that might see a so-called rogue state disabling critical infrastructure of a nation with which it sees conflict or indeed another nation exploiting the likes of social media to randomise the roll of the political device either in their favour or to nudge voters towards an unanticipated outcome in elections and referenda.

Segun Joshua, Faith Osasumwen Olanrewaju, Lady Adaina Ajayi, and Sunday Idowu of the Covenant University in Ota, Nigeria, writing in the International Journal of Electronic Governance, suggest that the global peace-promoting organisation that is the United Nations might struggle to cope with this new emerging dimension of warfare – cyberwar. They have examined ICT and the UN’s peace-keeping role and how the workings of the organisation perhaps require a rethink in order to maintain world peace.

Fundamentally, the study has found that the UN’s approach to cyberwarfare has so far been akin to its approach to conventional threats and this is a serious limitation. “The study finds that even though the UN has been applying the laws of armed conflict and some suggested norms to address the possible danger of cyber conflict, they seem not to be sufficient which can hamper state relations and threaten the fragile stability of the international system,” the team writes.

Cyberwarfare can escalate to the level of full-blown armed conflict and have far-reaching effects on societies around the world. A reboot of the UN this context must be placed high on the agenda to find ways to guard against that kind of conflict before it is too late. There will be a need to establish new rules that fill the gaps in international law holistically rather than being simple stopgaps. Nations must then be bound by these new laws so that warfare and cyberwarfare remain equally off-limits to ensure world peace.

Joshua, S., Olanrewaju, F.O., Ajayi, L.A. and Idowu, S. (2020) ‘Information and communication technology and cyber conflict: rethinking the role of the United Nations in world peace’, Int. J. Electronic Governance, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp.290–306.