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Global CyberPolitics

Council of Europe: Convention on Cyber Crime

Signed in 2001 and effective in 2004, the Budapest Convention on Cyber Crime is a landmark agreement in its own right, that can also provide important directives for future global accords.

Article Salience

The analysis of the text spans the “whole” of the Convention, following the methods introduced in POLICY ANALYTICS. Accordingly, the Figure below is a representation of the text, transformed into a design structure matrix (DSM), and then into a network view, highlighting (a) the relative salience of individual nodes and (b) the strength of the connection (interface or edges).

Network Model of Convention on Cybercrime: Salience of Articles and Connection
MODEL OF ARTICLE SALIENCE FOR BUDAPEST CONVENTION OF CYBERCRIME.
Source: Choucri, N., & Agarwal, G. (2022). Analysis of “Convention on Cybercrime (ETS No. 185)” [Unpublished manuscript]. MIT Political Science.
Note: Nodes represent the Articles. Node color code signals the individual Chapters. Node size represents eigenvalue centrality score. Edge width indicates number of times source node refers to the target node.

A cursory view of the Figure clearly indicates The salience of Article 4 on data interference stands out as the most important measure to be taken at the national level.  Then, too, Article 10 on copyright infringement offenses, and Article 14 on procedural scope are situated in the strategic position of providing links to other cluster of Articles. Article 10 connects to external documents on other international agreements, and Article 14 reinforces national measures.

Visual Representations of Three Directives

The Figure above allows us to identify at least three features of the Convention that constitute important directives for the robust international agreements. Accordingly, the Convention:

  • Adopts an inclusive definition of cyber harm and damages, with no loop holes and not exceptions
  • Focuses on national action and internal initiatives to reduce disconnects, build capacity, and enable collaborative responses
  • Reinforces the scope of international accords by reference to, and leveraging, previous agreements, as well as extending cross-domain scope.

Such directives are especially important as the international community moves toward more and more regulation of information and communication technologies.

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