Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

Update:

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is an intergovernmental organisation created in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan have joined in 2017, while in 2022 Iran has signed memorandum to join.

One of the main goals of the organisation is to promote cooperation among its member states in areas such as trade and economy, science and technology, culture, education, and other fields.

The organisation is paying particular attention to issues related to cybersecurity and international norms in this regard. In 2009, the SCO member states reached an agreement about cooperation in the field of ensuring the international information security. In 2011, four of the CSO member states submitted a proposal on a International Code of Conduct for Information Security to the United Nations Secretary-General, for discussions at the UN General Assembly meeting. Later on, in 2015, a revised version of the Code was submitted for consideration to the UN General Assembly, by all five members of SCO. The aim of such a code, as proposed by SCO, would be to identify the rights and responsibilities of states in the information space, and to enhance their cooperation in addressing common threats and challenges in the information space. The proposal and its elements have been brought up, especially by the Russian Federation, to the UN Group of the Governmental Experts, and subsequently the UN Open-ended Working Group.

In 2019, the UN has passed a resolution towards developing an international convention against cybercrime, tabled by Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan together with 22 other countries. This led to the establishment of the open-ended Cybercrime Ad Hoc Committee, under the auspices of the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly, mandated with drafting a new cybercrime convention by 2023.