Recommendation 2130 (2018)

Legal challenges related to hybrid war and human rights obligations

Author(s): Parliamentary Assembly

Origin - Assembly debate on 26 April 2018 (17th Sitting) (see Doc. 14523, report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, rapporteur: Mr Boriss Cilevičs; and Doc. 14536, opinion of the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media, rapporteur: Mr Volodymyr Ariev). Text adopted by the Assembly on 26 April 2018 (17th Sitting).

1. The Parliamentary Assembly refers to its Resolution 2217 (2018) on legal challenges related to hybrid war and human rights obligations.

2. The Assembly recommends that the Committee of Ministers:

2.1. conduct a study on hybrid war threats, with a special focus on non-military means, in order to identify key vulnerabilities and specific hybrid-related indicators, potentially affecting national and European structures and networks, and to identify legal gaps and develop appropriate legal standards, including considering a new Council of Europe convention on this subject;

2.2. draft principles for regulatory reform of social media platforms to ensure transparency in the conduct of free and fair elections;

2.3. examine States’ practice in countering hybrid war threats, with a view to identifying legal standards and good practice and ensuring compliance of this practice with the safeguards provided for by the European Convention on Human Rights (ETS No. 5);

2.4. step up co-operation with other international organisations working in this field, in particular the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO);

2.5. promote the ratification by member and non-member States of the Convention on Cybercrime (ETS No. 185);

2.6. examine ways in which the Convention on Cybercrime is implemented by its States parties and initiate a reflection on whether it could be improved.