The Evaluation of Cyber Attacks with Regards to the Use of Force in International Law

In the last two decades, the usage of technology has dramatically increased. This has created a new domain where both governments and civilians have become vulnerable against serious cyber threats. These threats are able to induce myriad consequences, including physical damage as the traditional weapons do. In this context, a substantial part of national critical infrastructure, most particularly, nuclear plants, military systems or pipelines have become targets. Hence, it is a clear paradigm shift that traditional understanding of the threat has fundamentally changed and international law must take the new threats into account. The main question for international law is how to govern or deal with these issues. This study particularly examines the applicability of the use of force in international law to cyber warfare. The use of force in international law regulates when states are able to legally resort to force. To resort to force against another state’s territorial integrity and political independence, apart from exceptions, is strictly restrained in the UN Charter. In this context, it is fair to say that cyber-attacks that led to same kinetic consequences as use of force should be similarly treated in international law. However, it is evident that the existing regulation and practices are not adequate for the application to cyber warfare. The historical experience illustrates that novel weapon systems should be restricted by international law as in chemical and nuclear weapons. It can be asserted that cyber capacity cannot be compared to the weapon systems, but similar destructive consequences capacity like any other weapons weakens these claim. A cyber-specific agreements should be achieved by considering international customary law as a starting point. The main consideration of the study is to raise whether the existing regulations in use of force are enough to meet the needs for cyber warfare and attempts to develop possible solutions against the legal ambiguity