US negotiator urges passage of contentious UN cybercrime treaty

The US’s lead treaty negotiator on a controversial international cybercrime agreement said it would be a mistake not to sign, according to The Record.

Ambassador Deborah McCarthy, who has taken point for the US on the United Nations General Assembly’s Ad Hoc Committee on Cybercrime, urged the Biden administration not to change course on the treaty, which the committee unanimously approved in August 2024. Recent reports have indicated the White House is reluctant to sign on the grounds that foreign adversaries like China and Russia could point to provisions in the treaty as pretext for mass surveillance.

“It would be unheard of for us to pull out of consensus after we led the system and joined,” McCarthy told attendees at an event for the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Oct. 4. “There’d be huge disappointment if all of us in the US were to say, ‘You know, we’re not part of this.’ And I think that would drive a big wedge at the UN.”

McCarthy referred to an upcoming vote on the treaty as “pretty much pro forma,” The Record reported, adding her team’s inquiries of other democratic countries have found no opposition to its passage.

The treaty, titled the comprehensive international convention on “Countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes,” is intended by proponents to set up a global legal framework for handling cybercrimes.

Atlantic Council, a US foreign policy think tank, has noted the draft treaty extends beyond crimes like ransomware to encompass a range of “crimes committed using technology,” as well as obligates states parties to cooperate on “collecting, obtaining, preserving, and sharing of evidence in electronic form of any serious crime.” The treaty also requires states parties to establish domestic laws that “compel” service providers to “collect or record” real-time traffic and/or content data, as well as retain those records for longer periods of time.

Watchdog groups such as the US’s Electronic Frontier Foundation have warned that the agreement could allow states to demand assistance from others when investigating anything it considers a serious crime—even if that crime is online political protest or LGBTQ+ content. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has argued surveillance-related provisions in the proposed treaty lack meaningful safeguards, instead deferring to whatever domestic laws are in place without regard to the human rights record of any given state.

“The treaty requires states to establish expansive electronic surveillance powers to investigate and cooperate on a wide range of crimes, even offenses where no information and communication system is involved in the commission of the crime,” Deborah Brown, HRW’s deputy director for technology and human rights, told The Record.

McCarthy acknowledged the treaty won’t prevent repression that is already happening, but that the treaty will “shine a light on misuse,” according to The Record. She also argued the treaty is bound to pass with or without US support.

“The train has left the station and the train is going to go without us,” she told the audience.