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International Cybertorts: Expanding State Accountability In Cyberspace, Rebecca Crootof

Law Faculty Publications

States are not being held accountable for the vast majority of their harmful cyberoperations, largely because classifications created in physical space do not map well onto the cyber domain. Most injurious and invasive cyberoperations are not cybercrimes and do not constitute cyberwarfare, nor are states extending existing definitions of wrongful acts permitting countermeasures to cyberoperations (possibly to avoid creating precedent restricting their own activities). Absent an appropriate label, victim states have few effective and nonescalatory responsive options, and the harms associated with these incidents lie where they fall.

This Article draws on tort law and international law principles to construct …