United Nations Digital Blue Helmets as a Starting Point for Cyber Peacekeeping

TL;DR

This paper explores how the United Nations' existing peacekeeping structures and initiatives like the Digital Blue Helmets can serve as a foundation for developing effective cyber peacekeeping strategies to prevent cyber conflicts.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of traditional UN peacekeeping, current cyber initiatives, and the proposed Cyber Peacekeeping framework to offer practical recommendations for UN cyber peacekeeping implementation.

Findings

UN mandates overlap with CPK needs

Digital Blue Helmets align with CPK responsibilities

Recommendations for integrating CPK into UN structures

Abstract

Prior works, such as the Tallinn manual on the international law applicable to cyber warfare, focus on the circumstances of cyber warfare. Many organizations are considering how to conduct cyber warfare, but few have discussed methods to reduce, or even prevent, cyber conflict. A recent series of publications started developing the framework of Cyber Peacekeeping (CPK) and its legal requirements. These works assessed the current state of organizations such as ITU IMPACT, NATO CCDCOE and Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and found that they did not satisfy requirements to effectively host CPK activities. An assessment of organizations currently working in the areas related to CPK found that the United Nations (UN) has mandates and organizational structures that appear to somewhat overlap the needs of CPK. However, the UN's current approach to Peacekeeping cannot be directly mapped to cyberspace. In this research we analyze the development of traditional Peacekeeping in the United Nations, and current initiatives in cyberspace. Specifically, we will compare the proposed CPK framework with the recent initiative of the United Nations named the 'Digital Blue Helmets' as well as with other projects in the UN which helps to predict and mitigate conflicts. Our goal is to find practical recommendations for the implementation of the CPK framework in the United Nations, and to examine how responsibilities defined in the CPK framework overlap with those of the 'Digital Blue Helmets' and the Global Pulse program.