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This special issue contains the remarks of our UN21 panel from the April, 2001 Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law. All concerned were delighted with the quality and diversity of the speakers' presentations. You can view our web page for the presentation on line at <http://home.att.net/~slomansonb/e-Present.html>, scroll down to ASIL presentation.

We continue to carry our group's UN Decade Objectives in each issue, as a continual reminder of our dedication to the ideals that were the basis for the UN Decade of International Law from 1990-1999. In this issue of the UN21 Newsletter, I have included the portion of the UN's 2000 Millennium Resolution by Heads of State that expresses the continued objectives on strengthening the UN.

You will find the usual potpourri of entries in Reader's Corner-which is supported by many publishers throughout the world, as well as the generosity of the Thomas Jefferson School of Law Library's dedication to expending my access to International Law publications for review in each issue of our Newsletter.

Our online listserv continues to provide a convenient means for keeping in touch with one another as well as details regarding late, breaking developments. If you have not signed on, you need only visit our web page at <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/un21>, and then follow the easy instructions for registering. There is no charge for this service that I established and now moderate on behalf of the UN21 group.

Each Newsletter issue carries a restatement of the essential goals of the United Nations Decade of International Law (1990-1999). New members, and seasoned ones as well, can readily articulate the reason for our existence. The four essential objectives of the Decade are:

° Promoting acceptance of the substantive principles of International Law;

° Promoting peaceful settlement of disputes, including greater use of the International Court of Justice (ICJ);

° Encouraging progressive development of International Law and its codification;

° Encouraging the teaching, study, dissemination, and wider acceptance of International Law.

* Thanks to UN21 member and staunch supporter, Howard Meyer, for making the proposal that this listing be mentioned in each issue of our Newsletter. The members present at an annual business meeting of UN21 adopted it several years ago. I have thus included it in each ensuing issue of our UN21 Newsletter.

Dr. Marcelo Kohen, Associate Professor of International Law, The Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland:

Publications-(1) "Manifeste pour le droit international du XXe siècle" in: L. Boisson de Chazournes et V. Gowlland (éd.), The International Legal System in Quest of Equity and Universality; (2) Liber Amicorum Georges Abi-Saab, La Haye, Kluwer, 2001, pp. 123-152; (3) "Internationalisme et mondialisation" in Charles-Albert MORAND (éd.), La mondialisation et le droit, Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2001, pp. 107-130; (4) "Uti possidetis, prescription et pratique subséquente à un traité dans l'affaire de l'île de Kasikili/Sedudu devant la Cour internationale de Justice", German Yearbook of International Law, 2000, vol. 43, pp. 162-186; (5) "L'influence du temps sur les règlements territoriaux". Société française pour le droit international, Le droit international et le temps. (6) Colloque de Paris 2000. Paris, Pedone, 2001, pp. 129-157; (7) Review of Andreas Zimmermann's book "Staatennachfolge in völkerrechtliche Verträge. Zugleich ein Beitrag zu den Möglichkeiten und Grenzen völkerrrechtlicher Kodifikation" in Revue générale de droit international public, t. 105, 2001, pp. 265-266.

Courses, lectures, seminars, etc-(1) Geneva, summer semester 2001, Course on Globalization, State and International Law, Graduate Institute of International Studies; (2) Durham (N.C.), 23 and 24 February 2001, Duke University, Workshop "The Effects of U.S. Predominance on the Foundations of International Law;" (3) Report: The Use of Force, Madrid, March-April 2001, Visiting Professor at Instituto Universitario Ortega y Gasset, Master in International Relations, course: "Creación y transformación del Estado: tendencias contemporáneas;" (4) Geneva 22 and 23 March 2001, convener of the Colloquium in honour of Professor Georges Abi-Saab, "Social Justice and International Law."

Prof. Martha Trofimenko

1. Delivered a Paper at the Annual International Conference of the Association for the Study of Nationalities in New York, in April 7, 2001, on "International Standards and Policies Regarding Linguistic Rights of Minorities - EU, UN and International Conventions;"
2. Gave two papers about Jurists-humanists and their respective books in the early twenties in Western Ukraine, April 12 2001 and May 12, 2001;
3. Chaired a Panel "Influence of Science and Scholarship on Constructing a State" at the Conference of the Social Sciences Section of the Shevchenko Scientific Society, in New York, May 19, 2001.

William Slomanson (Thomas Jefferson School of Law & ASIL UN21 Interest Group Chair)

The ASIL's annual meeting theme is whether the once invisible college of international lawyers has become more visible, or can become more visible, in the new millennium. This particular panel is organized under the seventh meeting cluster entitled New Frontiers. We will generally explore the impact of the Internet on our corner of the universe, at a time when we are gradually shifting from a print world to an electronic world.

More specifically, we will focus on the four following themes: (1) The Internet has not spawned the anticipated degree of collegiality between developed countries and the Third World; (2) A WIPO intellectual property prospective on Net-based policy initiatives which will impact our College of International Lawyers; (3) Traditional international borders have been blurred but not eclipsed by the new cyberspace frontier; and (4) Having navigated three points of the compass, our final speaker will illustrate the college's vulnerability as a result of the connectivity which we now enjoy.

We wanted to provide the audience with an electronic handout of key resources and contact information which we will refer to during our respective presentations. It is available on the panel web page which is projected on the screen near the dais. It will also be accessible when you return home at <http://home.att.net/~slomansonb/e-Present.html>.

M. Sornarajah (National University of Singapore & American University Visiting Professor)

My task is to examine whether the so-called cyber campus has become a reality. When Oscar Schachter wrote in 1977 about the College of International Lawyers, he contemplated the existence of a universal college which could collectively react to breaches of its fundamental rules. This universal college would serve as a model for opposing violations of fundamental norms of International Law.

From my perspective, the College of International Lawyers remains invisible. It continues to have an idealistic mission. It also remains to be seen, if and how the Internet will alter the underlying reality. The romantic vision of the Internet is that it brings the world closer together, and serves as a tool of globalization. The ideal is a world which facilitates the Third World leap-frogging into a new posture in concert with the developed world, so that the poor of the world would stand to benefit. This romantic notion further envisions that many violations of human rights would be instantly exposed and quickly rectified throughout the world. The Internet would provide relevant details. The College of International Lawyers would thus shape world opinion.

There is evidence, of course, that the Internet is working to expose human rights atrocities in different parts of the world. And, Third World international lawyers now have easy access to information about international legal developments, because of the dramatically improved availability of the case law of the WTO, the International Court of Justice, and other tribunals on the Internet.

Third World influence can now be felt within the developed countries as is witnessed by the agitations against the WTO, and economic ministers--wherever they meet. No one travels from India to demand demonstrations in Seattle or in Switzerland. But there are a lot of poor people in the developing world who think like the poor people of the western world. To that extent the Internet has become a mobilizer of Third World groups and NGOs. They work within the developed, as well as the developing, countries. See, for example, the Global Justice website I have provided on the panel web page. It offers action programs for implementation at the next meeting of the American trade ministers at Quebec (regarding discussions about a free trade area for the whole of the Americas). There is another network, referred to as the Third World Network, which is a fairly sophisticated network in Malaysia. It seeks to electronically collate the scholars in economics law and other disciplines. The members of that particular "college" are working on Third World issues by propagating their interests via the Internet. It has thus become the avenue for advocating on behalf of the poor people of the world-regardless of whether they reside in developed or developing nations. So there is some mobilization of the masses afoot.

International lawyers of the Third World welcome such innovations. However, the unity wrought by the Internet is nevertheless a romantic picture-one which supposedly brings our College of International Lawyers closer together.

There have been competing events which undermine the utility of Internet for the developing world. The causes include a growing knowledge gap between the developing and the developed countries, often referred to as the "digital divide." Sophisticated Third World computer engineers are drifting towards the Silicon Valley, and the capitals of richer nations, in search of employment. The Third World is no longer in the developing countries alone.

So the Internet has become an unwitting avenue for polarizing the world. The Internet has generated the perception of a borderless brave new world. Yet new countries, and new indigenous groups are becoming sectionalized and capable of being effectively reduced into property. For example, when international lawyers speak of the Global Commons, they arouse the notion of the egalitarian common heritage of mankind. This phrase dominated the rhetoric during the Law of the Sea Convention negotiations. The reality is that the Global Commons is being sectionalized, so as to make it capable of being reduced into property. The deep sea bed was supposed to be licensed to corporate exploiters of mineral resources for the added benefit of all mankind. The developed nations objected.

The same process is at work on the Internet. US courts are making vast jurisdictional claims. The prominent instances, like Compuserve v. Patterson, illustrate how American courts are seizing upon the vintage "effects doctrine" formulated in the Alcoa case. If anything outside of the country has some effect on the US, regardless of where that action takes place, the US courts are generally claiming jurisdiction [as did France in the recent Yahoo Nazi memorabilia case which Mark Kende addresses below]. Our brave new world, which was not initially subject to such control and thought to be open to everyone, is now becoming the subject of jurisdictional control by the American courts.

Likewise, in the area of electronic commerce, property transactions are increasingly subjected to the control of the American courts. It does not matter where the goods are sold, under the convenient effects doctrine. Rather than the law of the country where the sale took place, Internet-based transactions are going to be manipulated by claiming that the "effect" of the sale occurred elsewhere.

Different fences will be drawn around the property to exclude the peasants. In the case of Napster, which brought music to the whole world, Napster is now fenced out. Music to the peasants cannot be heard as a result of the evolution of intellectual property norms, which is being dominated by the developed countries. In the case of financial serves, the poor will be fenced out in the US online services market. It is essentially available only to the rich who have the literacy and computer skills to tap such opportunities. So much of the Third World will be fenced out, to the extent that cyberlaw is dictated by human greed rather than by human need in the current era of globalization. Thus, the Third World will suffer significant burdens, not just benefits, with the advent of the Internet.

Chris Gibson (London partner at Steptoe & Johnson Rakisons & formerly the World Intellectual Property Organization)

Some of the comments that we just heard are of great concern to WIPO. Thus, a few preliminary observations. A half-dozen years ago, commercial Internet browsers were not available. If you were a lawyer for either a governmental organization or a private law firm, you did not have open and unlimited access to the Internet. There were a few places where you might have an e-mail application, which was comparatively cumbersome. It could be used within the firm but you could not send e-mails throughout the world.

Now, few are beyond the reach of this new frontier. It is easy to use and it is obviously being used. I will address policy-making initiatives from various corners of the world. If you are in the private sector, these initiatives and the dynamics they are creating can have a very real impact on you and your clients. For example, we have heard about the speed of change. One cannot use traditional deliberate processes to reach a result. In the WIPO context, it formerly set new norms in the arena of intellectual property. Creating treaties was a process that would normally take five to ten years. There are two treaties which were signed in 1996--the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Phonograms and Performances Treaty. These treaties were considered "fast-track" treaties. They were signed in December 1996, not yet into force, and 30 ratifications or accessions will be required by WIPO's the member States before either enters into force. There are currently about twenty-three or twenty-four signatures. They will probably come into force by the end of this year. When you think about when the process before those treaties started, which was about 1993 or 1994, we are still hoping for entry into force by late 2001. That is a very long process in relation to the business cycles and related communications.

The speed of developments in the electronic world is forcing changes in the way that our college is evolving. Network ubiquity is an obvious factor. Most businesses, law firms, and organizations had a T-1 line running into their computers as of three or four years ago. They can now have their Internet browsers on, all day long. Everyday, hundreds of thousands pages are being added to the Internet. So lawyers are shifting from Lexis-styled resources, or in-house resources, to simply using a very good search engine. My favorite is called <Dogpile.com>, believe it or not. I can use that online resource to find virtually everything I want: a European directive, or a paper that might be written by one of the professors at this conference.

Another element of change is the new call for transparency in our transactions. In the context of the World Trade Organization, new stakeholders are becoming involved in its policy making. These groups want access to the information that is vital to how the policies themselves will be developed--whether it concerns trade, intellectual property, or other issues. These groups want to know what is happening behind formerly closed doors in distant geographic regions of the world.

The Internet thus yields an international medium with countless international issues. In the past, it might have been possible to first develop policy at the national level, and then seek harmonization at the international level. Now, communications over the Internet, and the way that business is being conducted, has created simultaneous pressure at both levels. Institutions like the WTO, WIPO, or the International Health Organization have to move more quickly. They must think internationally at the outset of any project. This contemporary reality creates a lot of discomfort among the member States. They sometimes prefer do things first at the national level.

So what are the methods that are being used? More and more information about various policy initiatives are being published on the Internet, sometimes referred to as Internet consultations. The Internet is the chief mechanism for notice and communication of information regarding many freshly derived policies. The Internet attracts and informs a wide audience. One example is in the area of domain names-where I did a great deal of work. The United States Government, through its Department of Commerce, put out a call for comment on issues regarding the technical management of the domain name system. This "green paper" was posted for the purpose of seeking comments on the revised domain name policy. In January of 1998, 650 comments were received on that green paper. They came from governments, inter-governmental organizations, private parties, companies, law firms, and academics-quite a mixture of inputters. That green paper evolved and was eventually posted in June of 1998. Just four months later, a "white paper" emerged, which was called a Statement of Policy.

A new type of outcome emerged: a statement of policy that has been incredibly influential in the evolution of the domain name debate. That this occurred in just four months was no coincidence. Speed of communication was the driving factor.

A second example, and the one that I worked on most closely, was the WIPO Internet domain name process. Here we not only placed a document on the web. It requested information; we announced the methodology that we would use; and we conducted this deliberative process using the Internet as our chief tool. We included the potential scope of the issues that we would address. After we received comments, we posted draft Interim Report. We received comments on that report and finally posted Final Report. It was a recommendation, not a treaty. This was a very novel way for WIPO. We used not only new methods, but we also developed a new outcome. A recommendation was then handed off to a new organization called ICANN: the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Let me just say that ICANN itself is actively using the Internet-based methods for developing the policies. You can read much about ICANN in the headlines.

This useful examples illustrates that fresh formats for policy making initiatives are now improving accessibility, transparency, and broader consultation among the stake-holders. The full life-cycle of the domain name debate makes this point. The chief recommendation which WIPO thus developed was an international resolution dispute procedure for conflicts between trademarks and domain names. And as we went through those consultations we found that people wanted an option to litigating those disputes. We thus developed a new outcome, which is the current administrative procedure. It does not involve arbitration. This is the "UDRP," which went into effect in December of 1999.

What is that? It is a mandatory procedure. When you sign up to register a domain name, you commit that you will participate in this procedure should someone allege that you are infringing his or her trademark rights. The procedure was designed to combat cyber-squatting. The remedies were restricted to cancellation or transfer of the domain name. Monetary damages were not a part of this regime. Independent panels of one to three members hear cases, and a default position is possible. The current status of this procedure, which was developed using a new Internet-based methodology, is that as of this year (since January 1, 2000) 2003 cases have been filed with the WIPO arbitration and mediation center. The parties involved are from more than seventy countries around the world: Algeria, Argentina, China, France, Germany.

To address a point made in today's first presentation, the use of the Internet is global, even though there are serious problems in many of the developing countries which are undergoing economic and other transitions. People who register domain names are applying from all over the world. The filing rate went from one per day, in January 2000, up to an average of five or six per day as of this last January. The proceedings are in multiple languages. The procedure takes place in the language of the contract that the person who registered the domain name used. So they do not have to switch languages, e.g., to a default of English. WIPO's website containing information about this legal procedure is essentially self-explanatory. Hits on this WIPO website were 16,000 in January of 1999. That increased to 120,000 in January of 2000, and was over 1,000,000 as of December of 2000. So people are learning about how to employ this new online legal procedure by utilizing the resources found right on the Internet.

I will close with a few cautionary points. Merely placing information on the Internet does not mean that you have any excuse for not thinking carefully about the policy initiative that you intend to develop. How you are going to do it, what procedures your going to use, and transparency must be key elements in your planned policy initiative. Everyone can see it. You thus have to be thoughtful about how you are going to receive and interpret comments.

Mark Kende (University of Stellenbosch, So. Africa Senior Fulbright Scholar & University of Montana School of Law)

Many people believe cyberspace is a unique technological medium that has facilitated globalization by breaking down national borders. The US Supreme Court endorsed this characterization in its major cyberspace free speech case - Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union. Indeed during my year in South Africa as a Fulbright scholar I felt surprisingly connected to my life in the USA, both professionally and personally because of cyberspace, despite being literally on the other side of the planet. I spoke to academics who had done Fulbright scholarships in more mainstream locations like Europe twenty years ago who, by comparison, felt quite isolated.

Some commentators have relied on this notion of a borderless Internet which will play an increasingly significant role in the new information economy. Commentators assert that cyberspace can influence, and therefore alter, certain societies by exposing them to supposedly progressive values such as the free market and human rights. What I want argue today however is that these perceptions about the Internet, and about the role that international lawyers may play in the 21^st century, are not entirely accurate. In particular a recent French court decision, holding the American corporation Yahoo liable for permitting Nazi memorabilia to be displayed and auctioned off on its website, suggests that national borders are very much alive in cyberspace.

My thesis is that cyberspace will not result in a Utopian world in which international lawyers increasingly spend their time facilitating their client's borderless international business deals-or in which American values predominate. Instead cyberspace will cause some nations, like France, to create new virtual borders. This means that international lawyers will actually have increasingly litigious dealings with foreign governments and other remote entities including NGOs. In addition, the Yahoo case illustrates that more conservative societies may end up dictating the important legal doctrines in cyberspace.

Let me discuss the Yahoo case in a bit more detail. In early 2000 the French-based League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, and the French Union of Jewish Students brought a legal action against Yahoo in the Tribunal de Grande Assistance de Paris. Their petition claimed that Yahoo's display of Nazi memorabilia for sale on its United States auction site, as well as Yahoo's display of pro-Nazi propaganda, violated §6451 of the French criminal code. That section prohibits the display in France of uniforms, symbols, or emblems of those organizations and persons responsible for crimes against humanity such as the Holocaust. Yahoo responded in part by arguing in the French court that the court lacked jurisdiction and that the content of its Internet site was protected by free speech principles. On May 22 of 2000, the French court rejected Yahoo's defenses and embraced the petition filed by these parties in strong language. Let me read just a brief except from the French decision translated into English: "Whereas the exhibition of Nazi objects for purposes of sale constitutes a violation of French law and even more an affront to the collective memory of a country profoundly traumatized by the atrocities committed by and in the name of the criminal Nazi regime against its citizens and above all against its citizens of the Jewish faith. Whereas by permitting these objects to be viewed in France and allowing [web]surfers located in France to participate in such a display of items for sale the company Yahoo Inc. is therefore committing a wrong in the territory of France. Whereas as the damage being suffered in France, our jurisdiction is therefore competent to rule on the present dispute." The Paris court therefore ordered Yahoo to take quote "all measures to dissuade and make impossible any access by a surfer calling from France to disputed sights and services, especially the sight offering Nazi objects for sale."

At a later hearing in this case, Yahoo proffered evidence supposedly showing that it could not technologically comply with the French court order. The court therefore appointed a panel of three world experts-one from France, one from Britain, and one from the United States, to evaluate Yahoo's assertion. On November 20, 2000 the court replied, based on a report from these experts, that Yahoo should employ filtering software targeted at French IP addresses trying to access the Nazi sights. Yahoo should also require surfers to make a declaration of nationality. The court concluded that this combination of procedures would likely "achieve a filtering success rate approaching 90%, the software would screen out 70% of French cyberspace surfers with IP addresses that can be matched with certainty with a service provider located in France." The nationality declaration would hopefully block at least another 20%. The court also ordered Yahoo to comply within 3 months or face a 100,000 francs per day penalty.

In January of 2001 of this year, Yahoo announced it would try to block out the Nazi action memorabilia sights from French web surfers. But Yahoo spokesmen maintained that its announcement was unrelated to the French court directive. Indeed Yahoo filed a federal court complaint in California seeking declaratory relief to preclude enforcement of the French judgement. The resolution of that complaint is now pending.

This is not the first case where concerns have been raised about one country censoring others over cyberspace free speech. Many of you may be familiar with the case involving CompuServe back in 1995. The government of Bavaria basically forced CompuServe to close down its sights for a period of time, because those sights were allegedly pornographic. Nonetheless, the subsequent Yahoo case is probably the first time that a foreign court judgment bars an American Internet company's "speech," even when the speech is protected under the US Constitution. The Yahoo ruling, in my view, cast doubt on the popular conceptions of cyberspace I mentioned earlier. It shows that the supposed boundary-free nature of cyberspace actually has meaningful national borders.

The virtual world may not be so different from the real world. As Wayne State University Internet scholar, Jessica Litman, has stated "the remedies contemplated by courts deciding these cases are the use of technology to simulate national borders, requiring sites to come up with a method for denying access to browsers originating in complaining countries. If the trend continues we may see the end of the borderless Internet with virtual customs agents demanding virtual passports as electronic bits cross virtual borders."

The Yahoo case also demonstrates how the Internet may not bring about the hegemony of American values as some had argued would be certain to occur. For example, contrary to the French court's decision, the US Supreme Court has ruled that racist hate speech is constitutionally protected, and that the Internet deserves the strongest speech protection of any medium. Moreover, American courts have rejected the idea of geographic filtering embraced by the French court. In June of 2000, for example, the US Court of Appeals for the 3^rd Circuit decided a case involving the Child Online Protection Act. This is Congress' latest attempt to regulate kiddie-porn and other offensive activity over the Internet. The 3^rd Circuit ruled "web publishers are without any means to limit access to their sights based on the geographic location of particular Internet users. Current technology prevents web publishers from circumventing particular jurisdictions or limiting their sights content from entering any specific geographic community."

The conflict then between the French and the American approaches to geographic filtering could not be more stark. So far, France's less speech protective approach has won out. Yahoo apparently posted its controversial content on an American server, at American locations, and yet was still subject to the French judgement. The breadth of the jurisdiction asserted is revealed by the fact that Yahoo had actually prohibited its French subsidiary from auctioning or displaying Nazi merchandise from its French server, in an effort to avoid problems with French law.

Critics of the French court's decision have argued that it means the world's lowest common denominator, in terms of free speech, will control. I think this view is flawed though because the French courts specifically avoided closing down Yahoo's Nazi auction sights worldwide. The court instead issued a limited order seeking to bar access to the sights only in France. Moreover, as University of Chicago law professor Jack Goldsmith has explained-if American corporations like McDonald's must comply with foreign regulations to set up restaurants abroad, then American corporations selling their wares in cyberspace should also be subject to foreign laws. In addition, several American states have prosecuted foreign entities for facilitating Internet gambling. Thus American authorities see no problem with aggressively employing restrictive US and state laws against foreign websites. The shoe is just on the other foot in this particular case.

Other critics have raised a jurisdictional objection. They argue that an American Internet sight should not be subject to suit abroad, unless it is purposely targeting a particular country's computers. Despite the French decision therefore being legally defensible, in my view, it could spawn problematic practical effects in deterring cyberspace commerce. It impliedly validates a patchwork of inconsistent national laws and the resulting absence of uniformity will boost business costs and liability risks.

Is there any solution? Well here is were International Law can certainly come to the rescue at least regarding jurisdictional standards. As many of you may know, after two years of study, an American Bar Association report recommended that a multi-national commission be established to draw up legal standards governing jurisdiction in multinational cyberspace transactions. Another possible solution is that the Yahoo decision could be overturned if the European Court of Human Rights receives the case and determines the implacable French law violates §10 of the European convention, which protects freedom of expression. But such a result can hardly be presumed however, as some European Human Rights Courts precedents have ruled in line with French law that racist speech is not protected, even if the speech does not seem to be inciting imminent lawlessness.

Thus, until there is an international agreement regarding freedom of expression standards, which is unlikely to occur soon, companies engaged in cyberspace business will likely need more advice from counsel who are knowledgeable about International Law, knowledgeable about foreign legal approaches to jurisdiction and free speech, and other matters we cannot even imagine. Thus, my thesis is that these counselors will be needed to facilitate business transactions in a borderless world. They will increasingly litigate on behalf of their clients in regard with these new virtual borders that are springing up in various jurisdictions. That's why cyberspace will have a significant impact on the practice on international lawyers. In the words of Dean Henry Parret-Cyberspace will inevitably accelerate the "interpenetration" between International Law and domestic law principles.

Dr. Irwin Pickus (Georgetown University Adjunct Professor, and former Department of State, Department of Commerce, and National Science Foundation Senior Executive)

Now that we have addressed the contours of Internet opportunities for the New Cyber College of International Lawyers, let me hasten to add my comments on the implicit theme of cyber-terrorism in the context of international information and communication infrastructure (ICI).

ICI is global in scope. It includes not just the Internet, but also the entire publicly accessible telecommunications system on which the Internet rides. That includes a host of private communications networks and information systems, as well as those owned and operated by governments at all levels.

The ICI is essential to a wide range of national and private interests. Over 90% of the US Defense Department's communications are transmitted over publically accessible networks. While the most critical are usually protected by encryption, the vast majority is unprotected. Several years ago, a disruption in e-mail to a key Air Force base severely jeopardized an important military operation. More recently, sensitive but unclassified national security information was compromised by unauthorized access to DID databases from sites in Russia.

Private parties conduct the lion's share of business transactions over this infrastructure. They mostly depend on telephony and facsimile transmissions although they are increasingly using the Internet. Privileged medical information about patients, financial information on individuals and corporations, and legal documents are stored on computer systems which are accessible from outside the supposedly limited systems on which they were created and stored.

There is a strong trend toward computerized control over a range of industrial processes, transportation systems, and power grids. Control signals are usually transmitted over publicly accessible networks-although some companies have incurred the extra cost of running their own dedicated communication systems to avoid the potential for external interference.

Our main security concern in the international arena is that unauthorized users may gain access to communications and information systems to cause damage. There are four results which can wreak havoc:

• denial of access to the communications service or information system;

• alteration of the information which is flowing or stored in the affected system;

• misappropriation of information on the system; and

• misappropriation of control over industrialized processes, transportation systems, or the flow of electric power through the national grid.

Who can perpetrate such acts, which do not require much sophistication? Anyone who has a personal computer, who can access any of a number of Internet sites, and acquire the necessary tools and methodology which are not terribly expensive. Most attacks to date have been conducted by disgruntled or former employees against the employer. The most widely publicized attacks have been spawned, however, by recreational hackers, i.e., young people who believe that breaking into the computer systems of a major organization as presenting a worthwhile challenge.

Thus far, these attacks have been mostly an annoyance. Some have had painful, but limited, economic consequences. The potential exists for far more sever attacks against the ICI by organized crime, terrorist organizations, and even nation States. This potential for destructive behavior has motivated a large scale national program in the United States, as well as in several other countries including Canada, the UK, and Japan.

What does this scenario imply for the international college of lawyers? It raises a number of issues for scholarly research. There are questions regarding jurisdiction, the application of domestic criminal law, invasion of privacy, defamation, and the validity of e-contracts which will require lawyers who are familiar with the technology as well as the law.

But perhaps the greatest challenge to the international legal community will be to fashion and apply appropriate laws of warfare. Over recent centuries, society has tried to limit warfare in ways that avoid unnecessary damage to non-combatants. As technology changed the arsenals of war, the law of warfare eventually adapted. The prospect of cyber warfare is particularly challenging. Here, we have not only new weapons, but a new medium as well. Moreover, the primary targets for cyber warfare are not fighting forces but the civilian economy from which they draw their strength. When a cyber weapon takes down the electric power grid over a substantial portion of the nation, the main impact will be on the civilian population. The loss of critical infrastructure such as power, telecommunications, and transportation will cause extreme suffering among non-combatants with relatively minor effect on a deployed military.

The Council of Europe has been negotiating a treaty on cyber crime. It is rather controversial, primarily because it would impose economic burdens that industry believes to be unnecessary and counterproductive. But developing relevant laws of warfare for the information age, the interests of industry, and individual non-combatants must be factored into this equation. It is now those civilian entities who will suffer from cyber attack, rather than the military.