Launching UNIDIR's report on the Open-Ended Working Group on ICT (2021-2025)

All right.
Good afternoon.
I think we are ready to make a start.
If I can please invite you to take your seat.
If you're sitting in the back of the room, we still have some seats around the table.
Please you're welcome to join us around probably what is the nicest, I would say conference room for side events.
So please do join us around the table if you want.
Welcome once again to this side event organized by UDR, the UN Institute for Disarmament Research.
I'm Jamo Pet Pai.
I'm the head of the Security and Technology Program, and it is my pleasure to welcome you here today and to also welcome here on this side of the round table to be joined by excellent speakers that will alternate in taking the floor.
Here on my right, my colleague and co editor of the publication that we're launching today, doctor Samua Damoni to his right, sorry, miss Katherine Pisman from UN ODA, and here on my left, miss Juulia Rodriguez from the permanent Mission El Salvador to the United Nations.
I This is the official launch event.
You may have seen the virtual launch of the publication a few weeks ago of the compendium that we have put together.
Basically, it's more than a publication.
It's been probably some well as worst nightmare over the last nine months to try to aggregate in one single publication the analysis of five years of negotiations.
We're going to go into a little bit more details of what that entailed in terms of the methodology, how much data there was.
You'd be surprised to know how much you diplomats can speak in five years.
That was a lot of data and we really wanted to make sure that all of this information had a place or an archive that could facilitate you as you embark in this new permanent global mechanism.
So the agenda for the next hour or so you see on screen, we're going to give you a quick overview of the publication and some while we will run you over some of the key findings.
It's almost a 300 page report, so we're not going to be able to dig deep in any of the specific topics.
If you have very tactical and precise questions, the standard answer will be check the report because you will find the answer there.
If we can give you high level answers, at least for the chapters that Samuel and myself and some of the other colleagues here in the room have contributed to writing, we will, but please forgive us if we're not able to give you very detailed answers on absolutely everything that is in the report.
It has been an edited volume, it's the compilation of inputs from several authors.
Then after we've given you this presentation of some of the key findings, Catherine and Julie will also take the floor and share the perspectives of ODA and the chairs team in particular on the relevance and how you can use this tool to help you in the negotiations going forward.
Of course, there will be a Q&A.
We hope there will be time.
This event is also broadcasted online.
I will show you soon a QR code that for those of you who are following us online, you can use that QR code to ask your questions if you're here in the room.
You can also use that QR code if you want to, but you can also simply raise your hand and ask your questions directly when we get there.
This is the QR code I was mentioning.
It's the platform is slido.
You can scan it or go on slided or slido.com and then put wg as the hashtag.
I'm going to leave it there for a second if you want to scan it and you'll be able to submit your questions.
We have the moderation team that is reviewing them.
They assuming they are reasonable questions, they will all be then released and you can up vote or add your own questions as well.
This is the publication I was mentioning.
We are putting too many QR codes here for you.
This is the QR code to the publication.
You can easily access it on our website, both as a single manuscript, which is quite thick, but useful if you want to be able to also see cross references across different chapters.
But if you're particularly interested in a specific theme or a specific topic, you can also download the individual chapters as standalone files.
So the big question is, why? Samuel asked me this question several times over the course of the last nine months.
Why are we doing this? Well, you will see on screen at least some of the points behind the rationale of why we decided that this was a good idea.
A You can, some of you may have followed the process since it started in 2021, some of you may have come halfway through it.
But definitely a five year mandate is quite unique for a time bound process, process that isn't permanent.
Five years is quite a significant chunk of time and a lot has happened during those five years, not only in terms of the extent to which your own positions have evolved, but a lot of things have happened in the real world as well that had significant impact on the negotiations.
And In addition, of course, were all very happy to celebrate last summer the consensus report that was approved by the OWG.
However, you know, building a consensus report inevitably resulted in the exclusion or in the paraphrasing or in the fact that not all views were reflected, not all proposals or not all views made it to the point of consensus of the consensus report and the same applied to all of the annual progress reports that preceded it.
Each cycle of negotiations was extremely rich and not necessarily everything that was discussed in the room found its place in the APRs and in the final report.
Um, a key difference between this OWG and the first OWG that preceded it is that in that occasion, the chair of the OWG after the report was adopted, also released in his own capacity, a chair summary that was an attempt to capture some of the more nuanced discussions.
The OWG 21 25, did not produce the same or their didn't think that it didn't produce the same equivalent document.
So we thought that there was really, uh, an opportunity here to make sure that we tried our best to create that summary document where you as diplomat could go back and find what was discussed over the course of the past five years beyond what was eventually agreed in the consensus report.
But we also wanted to I have a little bit more of an historical analysis to understand what were some of the drivers that led to that consensus, as well as what are some of the potential obstacles that got in the way of achieving consensus on some topics that perhaps seemed relevant, seemed close to consensus, but somehow didn't reach it.
Then ultimately the last bullet is probably the most important one, um, we really want to give you wanted to give you an opportunity to keep building on what was what was already agreed on and achieved.
Keep reflecting on the fact, particularly for those of you who might be relatively new to this process.
Perhaps, you may not be aware of all of the variety of proposals that have been put on the table over the course of the last five years.
Proposals of all kinds from shared repository of information on threats to proposals for new norms, to proposals for portals or other types of mechanisms or CBMs.
There is just a lot there that we wanted to make sure you had access to.
The structure of this report, it's unsurprising.
It Introduction, of course, if you cut the head and tail with the introduction and cross cutting analysis, the core of this report consists of the various items that were discussed as part of the OWG.
For each one of those existing and potential threats, rules, norms, and principles of responsible state behavior, international law, CBMs, capacity building, and regular institutional dialogue.
Each one of them has its own separate and dedicated chapter.
And as I said, you can read it cover to cover, something I probably would not recommend or be a little bit more deliberate in how you decide to pick the content based on what you're interested in.
The analysis, we needed to find a way of structuring our analysis, and we decided to use a cycle approach, which basically each cycle included all of the negotiations up until the point where an annual progress report or the final report was adopted.
You can see it on the slide, it's a little bit small, but the first cycle included the first three sessions, the second cycle, session four and five, and then cycle three and cycle four were chunks of three sessions each.
Of course, the way in which you all approached the negotiations changed the early The early negotiations in the cycles were predominantly focused on substance, while the last negotiation of each cycle was predominantly focusing on discussing language for the outcome documents.
This is, of course, a nuance that we've taken into account on some will also show the methodology.
You can elaborate more on that.
This is my favorite slide to show you.
How much data do we actually process? I'm going to read out loud just because I think it makes a different impression than reading it, but 3,210 interventions over 11 sessions, 912 written statements that were submitted by states, 198 working papers submitted by states, almost 280 hours of recordings, 105 meetings that were held over the 11 sessions, and 2 million words was the size of the corpus of text that we had to analyze in a variety of methods.
And you'll see there is an asterisk there.
Now, for the purpose of this report and I should start by saying you all know how much at UR we value the multi stakeholder community, how much we value the impact and the contribution they can make.
But because their contributions there wasn't an official track record of their contribution in the same way in which we had it with states, we decided for the purpose of this report and this specific analysis to limit the scope of this publication to state interventions and negotiations.
We may, if some it doesn't kill me, do a follow up to this study that looks more at the role of the multi stakeholder community and how they have shaped the previous OWG.
But everything that you see in that report pertains only to state interventions.
I think something else that I wanted to flag here before giving the floor to So it's almost like something for you to take note of as you're approaching the GMAC.
As you can see, there is quite the discrepancy between the number of interventions and the number of written statements that were submitted to accompany those interventions.
This, of course, for analytical purposes, is problematic, simply because a written statement is an official document that you craft and that we can analyze.
When we have to rely on just oral statements, we have to rely on on transcripts, translations which might not necessarily be as accurate as your own words sometimes.
I do invite you if you think that having a study like this that every five years when there is the review conference, you would like to have a study like this that summarizes the main trends of the discussions, I do encourage you to systematically share with the Secretariat and with the UN your written statements so that Unidir or whoever is going to have access to official sources that can then be used to run this type of analysis.
Just a little caveat there.
But with that, I think it's now time for Samoa to run us a little bit through the main findings, please.
No.
Thank you very much.
Yes, I mean, it was a huge amount of data as you can understand and to take it in a way that was useful for research purposes, we really need to have a grounded methodology to address all these data, otherwise, it would be easier to get lost in all these transcript, all these statements and so on and so forth.
So The methodology that we followed, maybe not as much as relevant as the finding, but I just want to make sure that we share a bit of what and how we take all this information.
First of all, it's to identify appropriate research questions, research questions that are achievable, that are doable.
Considering also the data that we had available, we didn't go to after informations that weren't accessible.
For example, all the informal consultations or the bilateral meetings, those are information that remain confidential or are not publicly accessible.
So our analysis didn't take those data into account.
The research questions more or less are already clear.
Jaco already mentioned them, but I just want to repeat just for the sake of clarity.
It's really to understand how the discussions evolved throughout the different years, what themes and trends can be observed throughout the different cycles, and last but not least, what kind of insights can be observed beyond what has been agreed in official reports.
Okay.
Um, so in terms of the data, it was a lot.
We had to systematize it.
Of course, label, organize it, clean it.
It was a very tedious process, but that had to be done to avoid the duplication, to avoid the files that were corrupted.
And we also started to organize them in a way that was mirroring the agenda items as per the program of work of the WG because that's how we intended to structure the report itself.
Once we had the data all systematized, indeed started the proper analysis and we did it through manual and software coding, trying to identify for each statement, for each paragraph of what kind of topic they were addressing, in which way, sentiment analysis and really trying to find some sense out of all the different interventions, all the different statements, using also some additional software to check and verify whether we did proceed with the correct coding before proceeding with the drafting.
Um, the coding helped us to identify themes and trends, and of course, the drafting process was based on this chunk of data that slightly became more information rather than just raw data.
After the drafting, as you can see, if you have downloaded the report, we did really rely a lot on state interventions and to cross check or fact check that all the state interventions, all the facts that we were referencing into the text, were accurate, we went back to the UN web TV to fact check whether what was meant by the state was actually what we were actually intending in our writing.
As you can imagine, this also took a lot of time because it was a lot of interventions, a lot of hours of recording to be checked.
After this process, we needed to make sure that we were delivering a quality product.
We had two rounds of internal review.
But that was not enough.
We also wanted to have external reviewers that were selected according to, of course, their expertise, but also on geographical diversity.
I can tell that by reading different feedback received by different reviewers in different regions, you could perceive a slightly different understanding or nuances regarding certain topics.
We really wanted to make sure that we were not only going toward the only one understanding of the themes and topics addressed in the report.
Okay.
Let me briefly go through some of the findings.
I won't speak on specific chapters, but just like giving you an overview of some of the cross agenda items, trends, and themes that emerged and we could observe.
The first one is that, um, The early sections of thewG were somehow characterized by a reaffirmation of the previous work done by WWG and the reports of the GGEs.
This was somehow something observed on each agenda item.
Everywhere states were reaffirming the achy or the framework of responsible state behavior and its validity.
After that, I would say probably around the toward the third cycle.
We're talking about after the first annual progress toward the annual progress report, that's where discussion started to be much more substantive, where we started to see much more operationalization proposals.
Sorry for that.
I mean, proposals that we were looking for the pronationalization of specific themes or topic.
I have the example there of the global point of contact directory.
Or the chair's normal implementation checklist.
This kind of proposals really made a move a shift from reaffirmation of previous commitment to new phase in terms of negotiation.
Another trend is about how states discuss these topics, these themes, and we could observe that the more we got into the sessions, the more the discussion got grounded and grounded both in terms of into real life events or real world event and in terms of knowledge, delegations started to become much more skilled or knowledgeable about what we were addressing.
They were discussing from policy to technical and legal issues and they really became more and more prepared to discuss the topics on the agenda.
And on the other side, the discussions also got much more grounded in terms of reflecting real world developments.
I mean, we all know that those years were particularly heated from a geopolitical standpoints, but also, um, appreciating the evolution of technology, the large language models, quantum.
So all these kind of developments were mirrored in the discussions in the rooms.
Another positive trend, concerns the increased representations of both states and in terms of the gender of the speakers.
On these, I have a second slide.
So as you can see, it's a little small, but probably you can still understand that there is a slightly increase in terms of number of states that took the floor across the 11 sessions.
We started off around 77 states up to 92 in the tenth session and down again to 83, but you can see an average increase in terms of states that took the floor throughout the five years.
If we break down per UN regional groupings, we have an example of a particularly positive example.
For example, the African group almost, actually, in one occasion, doubled the number of states that took the floor throughout the sessions, starting with 11 states taking the floor in the first two sessions up to 2022 toward the end.
Another thing that we can observe is that there is a slightly decrease in terms of state taking the floor during the negotiation session, the one that are circled the third, fifth, eight, eighth, and 11th, compared to the substantive session.
One hypothesis, but we didn't really dig into much research on that, is that states are very keen to share their views also on what they're doing at the national level or their concerns.
But when it comes to the negotiating a text, there might be some more challenges for all states to meaningfully engage in negotiations.
This is something that we may take into consideration also for the ongoing negotiation on the GMAC.
In terms of gender, it started off quite badly from women representation, but it is largely went up around the mid of the WWG and then the women representation remain always above the 50% line, and we need to thank also initiative like women in cyber for contributing to this kind of achievement.
A couple of slides 1 on what facilitated consensus and one on what actually hampered the more ambitious outcome.
For what we can see from our data, there are three main factors that facilitate consensus.
First of all, it's the work of you that were sitting in the room.
As I already mentioned, you came very well prepared to discuss a wide range of topics.
And you also demonstrated the flexibility and capacity to compromise when it was needed them.
Definitely, there is a big shout out that needs to be done to the work of all the delegations and all of your colleagues that preceded you.
It was not easy as you may know, given the geopolitical environment, but yet praise for the work of the delegations.
A second praise or a second factor that facilitated the consensus was the chair and esteem work.
It it was a very capable chair in terms of convening some sort of step by step approach leaving time to states to digest or to resonate on some of the topics that were emerging as possible proposals.
Another characteristic that the chair had, and if I'm not wrong, I already heard it in the room yesterday was the importance of guiding questions.
The guiding questions proved to be particularly effective in having states and delegation coming uh, prepared, and so avoiding general statements, but already trying to address some specific issues that then help the discussions to be much more concrete and pragmatic.
In some cases, the guiding questions help to overcome some stalemates and we can talk about it if you are interested in it.
Finally, the work of the UN bodies Secretariat, they did a splendid job, both from an administrative but also more from a substantive perspective, preparing all the technical reports, even the technical reports were very useful to gather views from states on many different issues from which then the negotiation could take some additional substance to proceed further.
And then I don't want to praise ourselves, but ITU, but we also did help the development or at least an increasing hopefully the understanding of some of the aspects, including the global roundtable on capacity building, the simulation on the point of contact directory where both us and IQ had a role in that.
What did prevent a more ambitious outcome is difficult to say considering also, again, the situation that the international community was facing.
But what we observed was a cleavage between those states that were more in favor of developing additional elements of the framework of responsibility behavior and those who were much more keen to focus on the implementation.
So despite the fact there are allegations that are sustaining that these two approaches are not mutually exclusive, nevertheless, in several agenda items, these tension resulted in slowing down the development, or slow down the process itself and so not reaching a more ambitious outcome.
Of course, then the international security environment, there is not much that I can add on that.
Everyone is aware of what happened interstate wars, but also major cyber incidents around the world.
The last point is, I would say some coercion that states had in terms of developing a measures that were considered to be infringing upon too much sovereignty or when those proposal would put too much of a burden on states.
That's also where we could observe that states were a little bit more cautious in proceeding further.
Well, last slide, it's on the relevance for the global mechanism.
The I would say that there is a generally positive outlook that international cooperation on these themes is both necessary and possible despite the international international security environment.
Also, I would like to stress the importance.
I already did it while I was talking about the approach of the chair of the adopting an incremental approach to topics.
Let the ideas circulate, maybe a one time, it doesn't land well, but maybe then you get back in circulation and because of other concomitcs and other things that happens, then the same idea may be much more welcome or much more, digested by the delegation really the importance of adopting this incremental approach.
And also the value of the guidance and support the delegation needs to have.
Here, I would like to underline the importance of practical exercises.
This is something that we did also with Unir and was particularly positively received simulations, TTX and so on and so forth.
This really help to have states not only talking about, for example, international law, but also how do we do it? If we do it with a fictional scenario, it becomes much more easier to then go deep into the aspects that still need to be further developed.
And then last but not least, the institutional memory.
We really hope that with this report, we contribute somehow to retain this institutional memory of DWG, the process that has been done for new delegates, but also to learn on good practices that proved to be successful in the previous year and so continuing the path of developing a common understanding on how SCs impact international security.
Thank you.
Thank you, Suele for this sprint through some of the main findings of the report and I do invite you to go back to it because pretty much everything that Suele highlighted as cross cutting or high level finding, you will find it elaborated with its own specific nuances in each individual chapter.
I do invite you to go back to it.
Thanks for putting up again the slide of QR code.
We're going to leave it there for a moment, but now I would like to invite Katherine, please to share your views and remarks on this work.
Thanks, Giacomo.
Thank you very much, una dear and congratulations on the launch of the publication.
I have read it cover to cover because I was one of the external experts.
It's a good read, if you want to relive it, I had a little PTSD at some moments, but it's an excellent resource.
That's actually where I wanted to start and pick up from what Samwi said in his slide, the importance of institutional memory.
Unitir has given us all a great gift by doing this report.
I can stress how much work must have gone into it.
I didn't see the behind the scenes, but I saw the drafts as they came through.
Um, and collating all this data and information is a massive resource.
It's actually something that I wish all processes had someone who's been around a little while at this point, having done other processes, other negotiations, whether it was, for example, the Trey on the prohibition of nuclear weapons or POA on S arms processes, It's often the farther we get away from the end of the process, of course, we forget the details, and then when you need the details, it's hard to know where to go.
We do have the disarmament book, which is an annual publication we do, but there's only so much detail in that, although that is a good resource I should also plug.
I think maintaining that institutional memory is so critical.
This document is really important now, but I think even in five, ten years, it will be even more important because who knows where we all will be.
I think what it does is that it speaks to a common refrain that we hear in the room and we've heard this week is building on the achievements of what we've already accomplished.
This document provides that basis to build upon by really having that data and detail about what has been achieved.
So really, Chabot for excellent work, and also helping make the Secretariat job easier too, to have a place to go.
But I was asked to also, um, make a couple of comments aside from the publication, but in the context of the publication in a continue start stop format, if I recall correctly from some W's instructions, and in light of course, of what we're here for this week, which is the global mechanism because we want to put all of this looking back in the context of looking forward.
So a couple of reflections in this, what should we continue? What should we start, and what might we want to stop? So continue.
Well, I think first and foremost, we want to continue this regular consultation in the sense that the OAWG was never just a week or two weeks of meetings a year.
I think that that was a culture that the chair, the Ambassador Gafur institute So he always talked about how it was a community and how the delegates, when we came back together, it was a meet and greet again.
He would do his coffee breaks to give time for delegates to speak with each other and constant town halls, side events, POC activities.
So it wasn't just a process of meetings.
It really was a sense of continuing commitment.
So I think that was one of the critical components because, of course, as Ambassador always said, it's confidence building measures, but also just as I said, creating that community and that sense of commitment.
And I think Ambassador Lopez has already started to maintain this culture of having lots of consultations and getting to know the stakeholder community because we do have new faces, but also those of us who have been around.
So that would be my first comment on what we should continue.
Second, and this was something that Suele mentioned even in just the takeaways is embracing consensus for what that means for outcomes.
Consensus is an imperfect principle.
It's an imperfect construct in the UN.
I mean, to be sort of state the obvious, it requires flexibility on all sides.
It means that maximalist positions or every proposal that's put on the table, as was said by our colleagues, doesn't make it in the end, to put it frankly.
I think this is something that in the OEWG was really understood and came through.
Of course, delegations were not happy every time the progress report was adopted or when the final report was adopted.
There was lots of disappointment, I remember particularly disappointment on international law section or disappointment on the other spectrum, maybe not having enough on new norms.
What gaps did some delegations see? I think there really was a solid understanding of what that meant for the outcome, but that the consensus outcome was too important for any specific proposal to break that understanding.
Thirdly, I think the OEWG really put front and center the need for multi track engagement with stakeholders.
We heard a lot about this yesterday, of course, we had a healthy exchange.
It's not a perfect mechanism.
There's dissatisfaction, I think in the modalities and where we are from some corners.
But what I've always tried to emphasize too is that it's multi track.
It's not only a stakeholder segment during the week of the plenary.
It's side events, it's consultations, it's roundtables, it's events that were held last.
EUISS had a great workshop for two days.
I mean, it's lots of different avenues and I think that there was a healthy commitment to that and I see that already coming to fruition in this new process.
I Fourthly, I think initiatives that supported broad and inclusive engagement.
We already heard women in cyber.
This had an absolute direct impact on not only representation levels, but the quality of the outcomes.
This is a shining example, I think, of what happens when there's real concrete practical investment in broad and inclusive engagement and women in cyber, but also delegate sponsor programs.
We had the support of France and Ireland.
In the past, we now have the support from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a sponsorship program for the global mechanism.
So real commitment that lent itself to having 3,200 something statements.
Then fifthly, practical engagement with regional and sub regional organizations.
I think this was especially important in the development of the POC directory and really learning from them.
We know OSCE, OAS, this rich experience and the chair really engaged them directly asking for advice.
I know that I do the same.
I think this is something that we also look forward to continuing.
I'll try to move quicker.
I wanted to focus on the positive things, of course.
But in terms of what we could start, I think, There are a couple of things that make this process unique, which requires us to think about new approaches.
One is from the outset, we have to understand that procedure impacts substance and we're in a first year of a new mechanism where we are generating practice.
Now, it doesn't mean that this practice will stay unchanged forever, but we are creating practice, and I think this is something the chair and her team are very aware of.
So The procedural discussions we had yesterday, I think they'll continue to come through and this is especially important for setting the DTGs on the right course, the dedicated thematic groups.
What do we need to start? We need to set those in a good position where they're really complementing the discussions of the plenary and we help them fulfill their function.
Which is not to duplicate the plenaries to really offer something new through their distinct modalities.
Then finally, I think from the start, what we need to do is leverage the value of a permanent mechanism.
This is something that as Giacomo mentioned, five years is a very long time and that was in and of itself unusual, but now it's even more unusual where it's permanent and we have a cyclical understanding of five years, but in 15, 20 years from now, it'll be a whole new landscape, maybe all new people, maybe some of us will still be around.
But I think we need to understand that there's a uniqueness and there's a value to the permanence, but also we need to keep that urgency.
I think that urgency still needs to come through in the cyclical discussions.
Because we have the value of a permanent mechanism is to diversify ownership among chairs and among leadership.
I I think we had a unique chair in the OAWG who brought so much and helped us facilitated so much progress.
Then now with this new mechanism, we see the value of ownership amongst different regions, among different countries with different national priorities and approaches.
I think this is really valuable.
Then just to wrap up, in terms of what to stop, I'm UN bureaucrat so I have to flip it to be positive.
I can't be so negative and to say, what should we stop? So I would say what we need to stop is shying away from the most difficult issues, which positively means embracing the most challenging substantive issues.
This is a point that our High representative has made many times, is that there are issues that will garner broader support than others.
This is just a fact.
Things like capacity building.
Perhaps we find ourselves in a bit more agreement and the narrative is a bit more um, um, homogeneous.
Where when we come to things like how international law applies, or are there gaps in the normative framework? What would potentially new norms look like? Even today's discussion on threats, you know, very divergent views on what those threats are, how you potentially attribute responsibility for those threats, and then how you respond.
They can be difficult conversations and it could trigger rights of reply or difficult exchanges, but we need to have those discussions.
I think there's no better place and this is the only place as a single check mechanism to have those discussions.
So I think we should stop shying away from those difficult issues.
Then finally, um, I would say we need to stop only focusing on maybe what an individual delegation or a regional group of delegations see as success.
We need to tackle the question, what is success for the mechanism? Now, that's easier said than done.
Of course, there's a place now in the beginning plenary discussions for delegations to put on the table all of their national priorities and to be comprehensive in what they wish to see.
But I think those of us who are in the OAWG as we move forward, it becomes less what every single delegation sees as the ideal scenario and it becomes more what is success for the process.
So this brings me back to my original point about consensus and what consensus allows us in terms of the feasibility.
I think that's a positive.
It's not something that we should see as a constraint.
Consensus does constrain us in some ways.
But the fact that we have this rich content, these reports with such rich outcomes that carry a certain weight of agreement really is extremely valuable, not just in the ICT cyberspace, but across the board, particularly in this environment.
Those are just some of my thoughts.
But to end back with regards to the publication, it's an incredible resource, really valuable and the institutional memory of this process will be important not just for this process now in future cycles.
Thanks.
Thank you, Catherine.
Julie, over to you.
Yes.
Thank you so much.
Good afternoon colleagues.
It's a pleasure to be here among many people that I know.
First of all, thank you so much.
Giacomo and Samuel.
I did not read it cover to cover.
But I do agree with Giacomo that I don't think that you're supposed to do it that way.
I think that as the colleagues were saying, it is a valuable resource to go and try to figure it out when you do understand one of those details that Catherine was mentioning about.
I think that it will be really important for scholars, practitioners, academia.
There are many people outside the UN that is using these resources student in university that are trying to understand cyber diplomacy and the value of this multilateral process on it.
I think it is a really good resource on that.
I like that, of course, it recognized the evolution of these processes within the UN as it is very important for us to understand.
I mean, these processes were born in isolation.
They respond to a specific context and we're building from those governments from those GGEs and then evolve until what we have in the form of the OAWD the first one, and then the second one that it is a very nor mentioning that UN processes do not tend to last that long.
11th plenary session is a lot.
We were discussing with Catherine before that and I think that I have come to appreciate the role of Ambassador Dafur more now in the chairs team because it does take a lot.
I think that particularly for smaller delegations, each session takes a lot of who amount of preparation and as you know, many colleagues here from small delegation a lot of you are my colleagues in the first committee, we do not only deal with cyber.
We have big files of nuclear unconventional.
Majority of us, we also deal with the Security Council with meets every day.
It is important to put that into perspective.
Is very important, the point that you mentioned on institutional memory.
Really important as very well noted the point on consensus that I think that it is really important to understand that it definitely does not mean unanimity.
There are very divergent views.
It is really difficult to produce something that is going to be 100% perfect for all delegations.
We have to play with that this is my best effort to compromise.
Which is what Ambassador Gaf did.
A lot of people were happy, a lot of people were unhappy.
You have to maintain that balance.
It's like the approach that we have tried to have from the chairs.
It is really difficult to produce something, as I said, that is going to be acceptable for us.
You have to lay out something that you know that at least is going to allow us to move forward.
This is what we had tried to do.
The methodology and the report is really impressive.
I did went into that.
I mean, the data that you presented, all the statements that were analyzed, all the written submissions, all the working papers, that it's something that from the church perspective, we also do go through all that you.
I will definitely encourage some all those allegations that share that for institutional memory.
Those are posted.
They were posted in the OAWG website and they will be posted in the global Mechanism website.
It is important, even for delegations that sometimes listen to something and they want to really understand or get further down understanding.
It is important to that.
I saw that you use AI tools, very good.
The positive size of it besides on the s that we were listening on this morning.
I mean, with that that I said, of course, it is difficult to rely on, you know, your manual coding and sorting out of information.
I think that the report captures a lot of the negotiation and that divided in cycle.
I did, having participated on that discussion, notice how as you say, the quality of the statement of pick up delegates start coming with really extremely technical and well prepared statement, which I think that speaks on the positive and the value that even smaller delegations bring to this process.
It captures a lot of also the nuances on this process as Katherine would say in this duality between do we need norms, the norms that we had enough, and of course, the discussion on international law that it's really one of the most difficult throughout this process.
I So as you were very well aware, you know, we started plenary session yesterday, and I think that this report captures how we ended up here, you know, fast forward to 2026.
We were discussing before kind of like what we had before.
They were negotiation processes.
That they were trying to achieve an outcome, but now we have an outcome with itself.
It is the platform.
As we have noticed before, we do not have to be negotiated mandate every year.
So we get after 25 years focus on implementation, which is really well and I think that the legacy of the OAWG will continue with us, even beyond the first B, all of those achievements that we already did, you know, the global points of contact directory, the framework of responsible state behavior itself, and more importantly, what you were referring on this relationship of trust that we have built, they have to be present and they will continue to be present.
I just want to before closing because I would like to hear and colleagues, it is very important, what Katherine mentioned about this to be a multi track and multi stakeholder process.
The chairs team and the chair itself is really committed to continue to work with, you know, multi stakeholders.
We do believe in the value that they bring to this process.
And I guess it is really important to that to embrace what's difficult.
We do as chair team, have a lot of recommendations for the review conference.
Because what we were given to start and kick this mechanism to work, there are a lot of different interpretation on those modalities.
We have done what we believe it was best drawing from existing UN practice.
But I think it would be really important for us in a moment and for us, I mean, the member states to like exactly what we need to do, what we want of this mechanism.
The role of the chair and the role of El Salvador is very pertinent.
We do believe that we're creating a practice.
We hope it is a good one that we will continue, but if not, the mechanism itself we design to having those stop moments every five year to say, okay, what worked, what didn't, what can we do better? I think it is a really well crafted structure on that side.
And lastly, of course, the support of Unidir has been fundamental in WWG will be fundamental in the global mechanism, and of course, our wonderful Secretariat.
Katherine the institutional memory that we need.
All of you that have emailed her, she always respond.
She's always in a good mood, to be honest with you.
The global mechanism itself is really lucky to have a secretariat like the one that we have at UNODA.
I think it works or price.
Thank you so much, colleagues.
All right.
Thank you so much, Catherine and Julia again, for sharing your views.
We now have about ten, 15 minutes where we can collect inputs from the room.
I also see some questions online.
I'll just pick quickly on that I see online before opening the floor.
One colleague asked if we envision transforming this methodology into a living observatory that can continuously integrate new evidence instead of producing periodic retrospective reports.
It's a great idea.
I think this specific analysis really focused on the OWG which is done and dusted, so I don't think we can reopen that.
But we've been thinking actually, if we project ourselves in five years, four years and we have to do this again for the first cycle of the global mechanism, It was a lot of work for basically almost the entire cyber team had to spend several months.
We were lucky that in this year, we had enough resources to do it, but that might not be the case in the future.
Perhaps there is value in doing this more regularly, and then perhaps do a cross cutting analysis every five years, but capture these insights more regularly.
Work in progress.
Then of course, is an interesting question and also got a like on the platform from colleagues at first around the You know, it's more of a comment than a question, but looking forward to participate in a similar publication that will acknowledge the contribution of the multi stakeholder community.
There is another question or comment around that, around who were the other stakeholders and what did they add? Like they the stakeholders added a lot to the discussion.
You could not have achieved what you have achieved without the stakeholders.
That is key.
The issue that we faced when we were doing this exercise was more related to the fact that a lot of the stakeholders contributions are not systematically captured the same way in which the state's interventions were.
Purely from a methodological perspective, it was very difficult to put the two things together.
It would be extremely reductive to think that the contributions that the stakeholders made were exclusively the three minute intervention that they were given over the course of the lunch break of one day a week.
So would be if that's the kind of analysis we could do, it would not have made justice to the contributions of the stakeholders.
One has to see the breadth and wealth of side events that were organized.
All of the closed door conversations, all of the indirect influence that the stakeholders had on the consultations, that's huge.
It's just difficult to measure.
As a research institute, we really wanted this report to be evidence driven, and that's why we park that piece of the puzzle for the moment, but not for good.
Actually, reflecting on something we're discussing with Andrea earlier, I think a Yesterday in another said event, I mentioned how important it is that you as state representatives, you let yourself be influenced by the knowledge that the stakeholders bring.
But also influence isn't enough if you don't acknowledge where that knowledge comes from.
So please cite acknowledge where you're getting that information from because it's even harder for us to trace what the stakeholders can do if the input that they provide you isn't reflected back in a way.
So Do let yourself be influenced and please do cite the work when you can.
Otherwise, it is difficult to see.
But, would you like to take over the moderation of the Q&A for the time that we left? Yeah.
Oh gosh.
From this side first, and then we go to Sharif and then on this side.
Thank you.
Carolina Inga from the delegation of Ouatu, I would like to highlight how the OAWG has been part of the journey of cybersecurity in the Pacific.
When we started five years ago, there were very few statements made in the Pacific.
We didn't have any joint statements as the Pacific Island Forum.
Throughout the course of the OAWG that changed by the end of the OWG we were intervening on every pillar.
There were joint statements from the Pacific Islands Forum on every substantial issue, which then later on translated into other regional initiatives to this confidence being built among our member states on various other technical issues as well.
I just like to make the point that the OWG will always be a part of the story of cybersecurity in the Pacific and a very important part of it.
Thank you so much.
First of all, congratulations.
I will try to read.
I don't say from cover to cover, but it's fantastic to capture the whole thing what those of us who have joined in the room have also experienced.
I'm really looking forward to listening to reading it.
But one of my question is, where are the observers? Where are the OSC or OAS or ICRC? Were they part of the report or did you consider them as stakeholders? I'd like to comment along the lines what Gatt mentioned about being optimistic about the process.
14 years ago, I was a member of the GGE and I was the only member from Africa and the Middle East.
Imagine almost 17 countries, 2 billion people with just one representative.
South and Central America had just one representative.
We lobbied to increase the size of the GGE, which happened a year later.
We lobbied for a permanent mechanism that was overwhelmingly voted against at that point in time 14 years ago.
I am very optimistic to be here and witness that we have now an endorsed permanent mechanism.
The open ended working group, I was privileged to be invited to the opening session I really sympathized with the chair of the first or open ended working group as well as the second because getting consensus in the room full of countries and stakeholders, that was a huge job and thanks again for everybody contributing to this.
I think your report reflects upon this.
I think the results to me as now I'm on the stakeholder side rather than the state side.
I'm very optimistic moving forward.
I think that process has advanced.
But there are mechanisms when you have an open an inclusive discussion, including all the states, all the stakeholders.
Good luck with the effort.
We are happy as first now to contribute towards the work if you want to compile a report for the stakeholder contributions.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Maybe we will respond to all the questions, please.
Thank you so much to you and IDR and the great panel for sharing all the details about the excellent report and how stakeholder contributions led up to it as well.
My name is Allen Creta Dale and I'm the data focal point for the UN Major Group for children and youth.
What I found really amazing about the report was how even though the ICT negotiations spanned multiple years, there was consideration of rapidly evolving technologies as well.
That's really great because in our AI driven world, we see technologies are changing left and right really quickly.
As we transition into the global permanent mechanism, one of the major challenges I see member states facing is keeping capacity building and threat monitoring frameworks continuously updated, especially as these everyday technologies become dual use.
We see this across AI coding assistance, network testing tools, and encryption capabilities where software is designed for a legitimate peaceful social development.
Then on the flip side, it can easily be used for identifying software vulnerabilities or bypassing defenses or launching cyber attacks.
Because member states cannot simply restrict these beneficial technologies without slowing digital progress, my question to the panel is twofold.
One, how can the new global mechanism ensure that guidance on caution areas and best practices remains dynamically updated in real time rather than waiting multi year report cycles.
Two, how can member states and research institutions formally partner with young digital natives and youth technical communities as active co researchers rather than just passive beneficiaries to gather ground level data on emerging AI risks and digital harms.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
Last but not least, Robert, and then we Thank you.
I read the report too and it's excellent.
Congratulations.
I wanted to answer a question which came up online, which was about the data.
As you know, developing capacity has the 2 million words in a database and we update it live after every session and we're using it for data science analysis to answer questions like, does training diplomats increase their success in interventions in the sessions? Who is speaking more on different topics in different sessions, looking at the gender question and how we can encourage middle ground countries to speak and have more impact within the sessions.
If you're interested in that data science question with the 2 million words, please do come up and find me and would love to talk to you about that.
I hope it won't be five yet until the next one.
Yeah.
I Sure.
Very very quickly because I think I think we're out of time.
Sylvia, coming to your question first.
The analysis is limited to states intervention.
So we didn't include SERC, we didn't include OSC, we didn't include Unidir it's really just focused on states.
Again, just from a methodological perspective, we wanted to compare apples with apples and to be more robust, we decided to limit to that.
I may I guess you can hear me.
We did look into regional organizations because that was one of the themes that emerged a lot throughout the different agenda items and depending on the chapters, but you may find the references to the importance and the role of regional organizations inasmuch they were mentioned by states and as you can imagine, states reference to OEC, to US, the European Union, plenty of time.
There is also one visual, especially on the CBMs about to which regional organization states were looking at the most when we're discussing CBMs, and you can imagine OEE came up quite quite a lot.
Yes, it was included, but indirectly through the statements of states.
Thank you for pointing out that Thank you, Sam, for adding that.
Yes, absolutely, there is reason to be optimistic if we look where we start and where we are now and also building on your point about the stakeholders, we really as a community, we have to find a better way of capturing what stakeholders do and can do to support this process because I think as unit we're a neutral observer in this we're caught in the middle, if you want.
There is, of course, a very active community of stakeholders that does a lot of important work.
But sometimes that is it is difficult to really, try to put it together in a way that is trackable, that we can trace impact, we can trace influence over certain processes.
That's also why I was making the point there of making sure that states then cite and acknowledge where they're getting their information from because it's useful.
On your questions around how can we make sure that what we discuss remains up to date? It's a very challenging question.
I think the dedicated thematic groups that will meet every December is probably a better place where states can go a little bit deeper.
I was mentioning this in an event yesterday.
I think if you really want to make progress, we have to start unpacking a little bit and we can't always just talk about the impact of the eye on cyber because that's a little bit too broad.
States could probably become better at tackling these issues if they were focusing a little bit more.
What is it that you're interested in? Is it AI and critical infrastructure protection? Is it AI and you name it, but really try to have more contextualized discussions and on how to involve how to involve more youth and digital natives.
I think that is something that's very important.
Unfortunately, Julie had to leave, but that's also something For the chairs team and the chairs that will follow of finding a way of reaching out to some of these communities more.
Again, I think that the DTG is probably the best place to do that, or the best moment to do it.
Yes, thank you so much, David, for putting together the database was extremely helpful.
This report is just scratching the surface of surface of what data science can do.
But the results of any investigation is only as good as the data that goes into it.
So if you find this report useful and you would like to see more of this work being done in the future, you have the keys of success here because if you give us good data, we'll be able to give you a good analysis.
If you don't give us good data, it's going to take a lot more work to get there.
Katherine, I saw you grabbing the microphone.
No, just on the point on the dynamism of discussions.
I think that this is just as Jacque Mo mentioned, it's a perennial problem when we're talking about technology in a room of 193 member states at the pace that multilateral discussions go.
They're just completely irreconcilable in a lot of ways.
We do the best we can, but I you know, we will never be as fast as the technology is developing, which is why I think big developments, big trends, of course, I agree with Jack Mo, for example, AI, we need to start unpacking that in the DTGs.
But a lot of these discussions too, I think, can be tech neutral in the sense that um, We don't want to bog ourselves down with every single technology development that is occurring in real time because we just simply won't be able to tackle it.
There are, as I said, bigger trends like AI and things that might be worthy of unpacking in a technology specific way.
But I think that this is just where we are in terms of multilateralism.
Then on you, just to say, as UN ODA, I have to plug our youth for disarmament program.
That's extremely active.
We have disarmament champions youth from across regions.
We do a lot of different events.
It's not specific to cyber, it's across all our files, but you can imagine that technology and emerging threats is really where most of our young people's interests lies.
So this is something that as an office, we are really investing in because we agree with you.
We need those inputs, and we hope that those sorts of stakeholders too will become more engaged in the process.
Thanks.
All right.
Thank you so much.
I think we have to wrap up and leave you some time before you have to go back in the main room.
Thank you so much for taking the time to join us this afternoon and if you have any questions, please reach out.
Thanks.