The possibilities of humanitarian international law on cyberspace: the United Nations and the cyber peacekeeping

Abstract

The regulation of armed conflicts in International Law gains momentum after the World Wars and during the Cold War years and the threat of the use of nuclear weapons on a large scale again. The concept of weapons, however, has always been expanded in the face of new technologies. The emergence and consolidation of cybernetic space created an arena for unthinkable warfare activities at the origin of normative instruments. There is a demand for the promotion and maintenance of peace to also reach this space. In view of this, the aim is to demonstrate the possibilities and limits of applying International Humanitarian Law to possible wars carried out through cyberspace, bringing up a debate based on the need for an equal application of peacekeeping in this domain. For that, a deductive and qualitative methodology is used with a bibliographical survey and analysis of relevant international norms. Thus, it is understood that International Humanitarian Law is extended to cyberspace, given that the internet can be considered a means and method of war, because while there is no treaty that prohibits it as an instrument of war, there is also no that regulates it as such. With this, the United Nations mandate for peacekeeping must extend to cyberspace.