The 2007 cyber attacks against Estonia and international law on the use of force: an informational approach

Abstract

This article considers the 2007 cyber attacks against Estonia and international law on the use of force. It argues that the prohibition on the use of force in article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter embodies an ontologically constrained conceptualisation of violence that requires some form of material damage to property or injury or death of human beings. As a result, the law is incapable of adequately recognising the harm caused by cyber attacks with non-material effects like those against Estonia. In an effort to overcome these constraints, this article draws on Luciano Floridi’s information ethics. This theory extends its ethical concern beyond the material world to include all entities, whether natural or artificial, physical or virtual. It is argued that by viewing the Estonian entity as an information system, the 2007 cyber attacks can be seen to have constituted a form of informational violence against this entity.