Professor Schmitt Explores State Rights to Use Force at New York University

On 19 November, Professor Michael Schmitt, Senior Fellow at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, spoke at New York University Law School on “The International Law of State Responses to Cyber Attacks.” In his presentation, Schmitt explored when states may use force to defend themselves against attacks by other states, terrorist groups and hacktivists.  He also examined when states may violate legal obligations they owe other states in response to unlawful activities by those states or by individuals or groups operating from their territory. Schmitt is currently directing the Tallinn 2.0 process under the auspices of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence. The project is analysing the law applicable to cyber operations occurring outside an armed conflict as a follow on to the 2013 Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare published by Cambridge University Press.

Michael N. Schmitt is also the Charles H. Stockton Professor and Director at the Stockton Centre of U.S. Naval War College as well as Professor of Public International Law, Exeter University (UK) and Fellow at the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict.