Events
Last month, a major cyber attack – one of the largest in U.S. history – hit the computer systems of hundreds of hospitals amid a pandemic.
As healthcare, elections, and critical infrastructure have become increasingly digitized, attacks against them, and against governments, have moved into the cyber realm as well. To help address these issues, a new field of “cyber diplomacy” has emerged, and Estonian Ambassador Heli Tiirmaa-Klaar is working at its cutting edge.
How can diplomacy and global governance address these new and emerging threats? How does international law apply in cyberspace and what new norms can help guide state behavior? As the United States and countries around the world try to modernize government technical expertise and infrastructure to meet the demands of the digital age, what lessons can be learned from Estonia’s experiences?
This edition of The World Today will feature Estonia’s Ambassador-at Large for Cyber Diplomacy, Heli Tiirmaa-Klaar, in conversation with Temple University Laurel H. Carnell Professor of Law, Duncan Hollis, a leading expert in the development of international law and norms in cyberspace.
SPEAKERS
Heli Tiirmaa-Klaar is Ambassador-at Large for Cyber Diplomacy at the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She started her work in Tallinn in September 2018 as Estonia’s first Cyber Ambassador. Before returning to Tallinn, Ambassador Tiirmaa-Klaar was Head of Cyber Policy Coordination at the European External Action Service (EEAS). One of the major priorities of Ambassador Tiirmaa-Klaar’s work at the EEAS was to kick-start extensive E.U. capacity building programs in third countries, with a focus on the fight against cybercrime and emerging cyber threats. She was also in the lead for developing the Framework of Joint E.U. Diplomatic Response to Malicious Cyber Activities. Shortly before joining the EEAS, she worked as a Cyber Security Policy Adviser to NATO where she drafted and negotiated the first comprehensive NATO Cyber Defense Policy in 2011. Ambassador Tiirmaa-Klaar holds a Master’s degree in international relations and political science. She was a Fulbright Scholar at George Washington University in 1998-1999.
Duncan B. Hollis is Laurel H. Carnell Professor of Law at Temple Law School and a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His scholarship engages with issues of international law, interpretation, and cybersecurity, with a particular emphasis on treaties, norms, international organizations, and other forms of international regulation. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute and served as an Adviser on its project to draft a Fourth Restatement on the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. In 2016, he was elected by the General Assembly of the Organization of the American States to a four-year term on the OAS’s Inter-American Juridical Committee, including serving as Rapporteur on Improving Transparency on how States View International Law's Application to Cyber Operations. Professor Hollis’s books include the forthcoming Defending Democracies: Combating Foreign Election Interference in a Digital Age (with Jens Ohlin), the award-winning Oxford Guide to Treaties as well as National Treaty Law & Practice and the textbook International Law (7th edition, with Allen Weiner). Recently, Professor Hollis was one of the co-founders of the Oxford Process where international lawyers work to adopt consensus statements on how international law protects critical sectors (e.g., healthcare, elections) from cyber threats. Professor Hollis frequently engages with State and non-State actors on cyber issues and is a regular consultant for the Microsoft Corporation and its Digital Peace program.
