Review article
https://doi.org/10.22598/iele.2025.12.1.12
INTERNATIONAL ARMED CONFLICTS IN CYBERSPACE
Bence Kis Kelemen
orcid.org/0000-0001-9641-1557
; Faculty of Law, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
*
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
States employ their cyber capabilities to replace, support or complement their traditional kinetic operations. When it comes to replacing physical violence altogether, the question arises, whether cyber operations in and of themselves are capable of triggering the application of international humanitarian law in the context of an international armed conflict. Analysis of the applicable law shows that an armed conflict exists whenever there is recourse to armed force, which ultimately boils down the attacks under international humanitarian law. If a cyber operation constitutes an attack, then it is capable of triggering the application of an international armed conflict. This usually requires death or injury to persons and damage or destruction to objects. There is however a wide disagreement in literature and in state practice as to what exactly constitutes an attack in the cyber domain. This article argues that state practice (accepted as law) is inconclusive to suggest, that cyber operations causing loss of functionality or deletion of electronic data without physical damage would also trigger an armed conflict between states, despite the undeniable trend in both state practice and scholarly writings to the contrary
Keywords
international humanitarian law; attack; cyber operations; cyber attacks; armed conflict
Hrčak ID:
332628
URI
Publication date:
24.6.2025.
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