[Chapter-delegates] Research on multijurisdiction legal issues and enforcement

[Patrick Vande Walle]

Tony,

There is already a lot of research on the subject, which has led to
practical implementations.

As others have pointed out, the EU has been working on this for the last
10 years and has already produced a few texts. Some are voluntary, like
the European Cybercrime Treaty. Some are compulsory, like EU directives.
Directives are general frameworks, which represent the consensus among
member states. Hence, implementations at the national level can be quite
different. But still, there is a miminum.

As you mention, one issue is that countries cannot rarely agree on what
constitutes a "malicious activity". Should, for example, a joke about a
religious figure be considered as an expression of free speech or a
blasphem, which is a crime under some national laws ?

When it comes to more technical malicious activities, like spam,
phishing, it may be easier to find common definitions. But again, some
forms of interception of data might be considered legal in one country
and illegal in another: my country may not cooperate with yours, because
it considers the way you have collected evidence is not legal according
to our standards. Or vice versa.

Here are a few links you may find useful:

http://www.coe.int/T/E/Com/Files/Themes/Cybercrime/default.asp

http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/doc_centre/crime/cybercrime/doc_crime_cybercrime_en.htm

http://www.interpol.int/Public/TechnologyCrime/WorkingParties/Default.asp

Best,

Patrick


Tony Hill wrote:
> I am interested to know of any researchers or research groups who have an
> interest in development of more effective legal approaches to the
> multijurisdiction aspects of the Internet.  
>
> At present, individual countries have their own legal approaches to
> malicious activities and we may find that such activity involves actions in
> multiple countries but only some of these countries may have laws dealing
> with such actions.  Also, there may be differing laws about the ability of
> agencies to cooperate with their counterparts in differing countries


-- 
Patrick Vande Walle
Check my blog at http://patrick.vande-walle.eu