GPD and partners make statement at the 11th and Final Substantive Session of the OWEG on security of and in the use of ICT

This week, GPD has been at the 11th and Final Substantive Session of the Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) on security of and in the use of ICT with negotiations on the final Annual Progress Report well underway.

This document will be instrumental in creating a permanent mechanism on cybersecurity at the United Nations. The current draft doesn’t include clear enough references to the human impacts of cyber incidents, international human rights law, and international humanitarian law.

Together with our partners at R3D and Fundacion Karisma, GPD took the floor today to highlight the need to better reflect the wealth of discussions on these topics over the past few years and to highlight the need for conversations to reflect local realities. Here is our statement.

Wednesday, 9th July 2025

Thank you Chair for the opportunity to speak on behalf of Global Partners Digital. We are a human rights organisation focusing on the governance of digital technologies.

Discussions around major cyber incidents often revolve around the technical, financial, legal, and intergovernmental consequences. However, this group has also unpacked the human impacts of cyber incidents, including at a breakfast meeting hosted by Global Partners Digital alongside the Freedom Online Coalition, Kingdom of the Netherlands and the government of Ghana at the group’s 10th Session. This event explored how major incidents and, specifically ransomware, have cascading impacts, including on human rights and gender equality, and require balancing technical measures with a rights-respecting, human-centric framework, fostered by multistakeholder collaboration. This could be better reflected in the group’s final APR to provide a clearer starting-point for discussions to progress in the new mechanism.

In addition, greater detail on international humanitarian law could be useful. While recent APRs reaffirm that IHL applies to cyber operations during armed conflict, they stop short of reflecting obligations such as feasible precautions in hostilities. We appreciated Mexico’s intervention on the need for the APR to include more concrete measures related to IHL yesterday.

We were also glad to hear so many delegations mention the Canada Chile paper supported by 42 states. This paper encourages NGOs to foster the diversity of stakeholder participation. This is something that GPD has been doing over the years at the OEWG. Through the support of our funders, we have consistently funded and supported civil society from the Global Majority to engage in international cyber discussions and supported their work to translate the global norms to their regional and local contexts through rights-respecting approaches. Without including these voices, discussions in the future mechanism risk missing on-the-ground realities, and proposals risk being impractical or inappropriate for many contexts.

We fully support and endorse the joint statement by a group of 22 stakeholders. We need modalities that allow stakeholderparticipation to go beyond symbolic consultation for us to be able to effectively support the work of States in the
permanent mechanism.

Thank you for this opportunity to share our views.