DW Weekly #201 – OEWG negotiations enter the eleventh hour
Last week, the UN Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on the security of the use of information and communications technologies in 2021–2025 held its tenth substantive session, the penultimate session of the group before its mandate concludes in July of this year.
Tensions ran high since the first day, with attributions of cyberattacks and rights of reply denouncing those attributions taking centre stage. The states held tightly to their positions, largely unchanged since the last session in December 2024. The Chair pointed out that direct dialogue was lacking, with participants instead opting for a virtual town hall approach—circulating their positions and posting them on the portal, and reminded delegates that whatever decisions to be made would be made by consensus, urging them to demonstrate flexibility.
Ransomware, AI, and threats to critical infrastructure remain the biggest concerns of countries regarding the threat landscape. Even as countries don’t agree on an exhaustive list of threats or their sources, there is a strong emphasis on collective and cooperative responses such as capacity development and knowledge sharing to reduce the risk of these threats, as well as mitigate and manage them.
The long-standing debate between implementing existing norms and developing new ones continued. However, this session saw ASEAN countries take a more pragmatic approach, emphasising concrete steps toward implementing agreed norms while maintaining openness to discussing new ones in parallel. At the same time, the call from developing countries for greater capacity development gained momentum, underscoring the challenge of implementing norms without sufficient resources and support.
The discussions on international law have shown little progress in drawing closer between the positions states hold — there is still no consensus on the necessity of new legally binding regulations for cyberspace. There is also discord on how to proceed with discussing international law in the future permanent UN mechanism on cybersecurity.
Discussions on confidence-building measures (CBMs) were largely subdued, as few new CBMs were introduced, and states didn’t overly detail their POC Directory experience. Many states shared their CBM implementation, which is often linked to regional initiatives and best practices, showing eagerness to operationalise CBMs. It seems states now anticipate the future permanent mechanism to serve as the forum for detailed CBM discussions.
The Voluntary Fund and the Capacity-Building Portal have increasingly been regarded as key deliverables of the OEWG process. However, states remain cautious about the risk of duplicating existing global and regional initiatives, and a clear consensus has yet to emerge regarding the objectives of these deliverables.
States are still grappling with thematic groups and non-state stakeholder engagement questions in the future permanent mechanism. The Chair’s upcoming reflections and town halls will likely get the ball rolling on finding elements for the future permanent mechanism acceptable to all delegations.
Delegations have much to agree upon and exceedingly little time to do so. While this has been the mantra for the last two years, negotiations are now truly entering the eleventh hour, and consensus remains elusive. This spells trouble not just for the group’s final report, but also uncertainty for the future of UN cybersecurity discussions that the report will chart.
For more information on cybersecurity, digital policies, AI governance and other related topics, visit diplomacy.edu.
The Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on the security of and in the use of information and communications technologies in 2021–2025 will hold its seventh substantive session on 17-21 February 2025 in New York, the USA.
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