UN Regional Partner to Vote on Cybersecurity Decree

The 56 participating nations of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, including the United States, will vote next week in Serbia on a resolution to improve cybersecurity cooperation.

The decree, if approved, would be included in an annual doctrine -- the Belgrade Declaration -- that represents the collective will of the regional organization that coordinates with the United Nations, say OSCE officials.

The proposal, which OSCE officials say is co-sponsored by representatives from 22 countries, calls for participants to exchange information about the way they intend to deploy cyber technology during military conflicts. It also requests debates on international legal standards and codes of conduct for operating in cyberspace.

About 250 parliamentarians are expected to assemble July 6 through July 10 during the organization's annual voting session to elect officers and select resolutions. The OSCE covers North America, Europe and Central Asia, including Russia, which is widely suspected of sponsoring cyber crime.

"When it comes to security, so much of our confidence-building measures to this point have been aimed at those things we see," Belgian Parliamentarian Francois Xavier de Donnea, who introduced the resolution, said in a statement "This measure calls on all our states to do the work needed to address the less visible threats of cybersecurity."

It is unclear how the order would be enforced.

The White House recently issued a voluntary international strategy for cybersecurity that urges expansion of the 2001 Budapest convention on cybercrime, a binding pact signed by 30 countries. Obama administration officials have said they will implement the strategy by developing standards of acceptable behavior, as opposed to rewriting international laws.