These remarks, prepared for the USCYBERCOM Inter-Agency Legal Conference (2012) by international lawyer Harold Hongju Koh, detail the U.S. government’s position on the application of international law in cyberspace. Koh offers ten answers to questions concerning jus ad bellum (law of going to war) and jus in bello (conducting war), in effect clarifying which cyber actions might constitute “use of force,” discussing the principles of proportionality and distinction, and arguing states are responsible for “cyber-attacks undertaken through proxies” among other things. The speaker then raises three critical, yet difficult questions that do not have clear answers: how to account for all novel effects produced “through the click of a button,” and issues of “dual-use infrastructure” and attribution in cyberspace. The speech concludes by arguing U.S. compliance with international law “frees us to do more,” more legitimately without compromising national interests or “our broader ‘smart power’ approach to international relations.
