Irfan Ali Thanvi

Cyber Attack in International Warfare Irfan Ali Thanvi

Over the past two decades, Cyber space and her tools have entered all important spheres of human lives including armed conflicts and have reached there dimensions that were privy to imagination when the current Laws of War in particular the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) were created. Hitherto, these rules designed for a kinetic Cyber-free world are currently regulating them. The purpose of this term paper is to highlight the legal vacuum governing the Cyber warfare, Cyber weapons and their use in an armed conflict and to advocate for a new IHL convention dedicated to Cyber warfare and Cyber weapons. It is done so using the qualitative method and legal analysis of the current legal framework including international treaties, customary law and work of the leading instances of international justice as well as writings of judicial scholars and legal and Cyber experts. The Researcher of the term paper presents the topic "CYBER ATTACK IN INTERNATIONAL WARFARE: ANOTHER USE OF FORCE?", hitherto has started to take shape by the turn of the decade in the field of Cyber-warfare. This research proposes particular Cyber concepts and examines the impacts of defining these concepts in the legal field. The term paper aims to introduce the grounds of application of the law of armed combat to Cyberspace. This research is a theoretical approach based on scientific texts written by the legal professionals. Applying the principles of International Humanitarian Law to Cyber-warfare is complicated, and it raises more questions than solutions. This term paper reaches a conclusion where the law of armed conflict may be applied to Cyber-warfare if it reaches the threshold of armed combat, but if the threshold is not reached, then the law of armed conflict should not apply and the battle field is the Cyber space for such a case. As a result, the Researcher finds that more attention should be paid to define the crucial concepts of the topic and provide guidelines on their application in legal context.