"The need to create a separate law for the cyberspace relies on the idea that existing international law is insufficient", Martti Koskenniemi, international lawyer and Director, Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights at the University of Helsinki, Finland, said at the EU Cyber Direct conference held in Brussels, earlier this month. Koskenniemi explored the idea, that if the cyberspace needs to be regulated internationally, what does one need to consider when thinking about how to go about it. Creating a regime for regulating the cyberspace When you create a separate law for the cyberspace, Koskenniemi said, you end up creating exceptions for the cyberspace, in order to deviate from existing biases and preferences of international law, which has state oriented biases, and if you're a rights person, you want to regulate state activities. Thus, you're left with two alternatives: you can go by the old law, based on sovereignty and with state level interventions and existing institutions, or alternatively, you create "a regime with its own rules, its own institutions, populated by cyber people and cyber preferences." "What would be the benefit of a new regime? New principles, new biases, new regimes. Cyber experts would rule, and by cyber priorities. You don't have to care about the Security Council. Would that be a good thing? There are problems there. If cyberlaw is something specific, then general principles and solutions that have accumulated over the years would be irrelevant. There would be a whole new black hole there."…
