On Thursday the 23rd of April Professor Mike Schmitt joined other leading international experts at a global Cyber Peace Institute webinar on the ‘COVID-19 Infodemic: Defending the Health Sector – How Cyber Operations Transgress International Laws and Norms’.
Mike and the panel of experts discussed the issue of cyber operations against the health sector from the legal and normative point of view. A YouTube link to the webinar is available here.
On Thursday the 23rd of April Professor Mike Schmitt will be speaking at a global webinar for the new Cyber Peace Institute, where he also sits on the Advisory Board.
Professor Mike Schmitt recently gave a short course on the international law of cyber conflict at the University of Texas at Austin Strauss Center for International Security and Law, where he is a Distinguished Scholar.
On 9th April, Professor Mike Schmitt spoke to students of the United States Naval War College on the legality of the United States’ strategy of “Persistent Engagement” in cyberspace. According to the strategy, the U.S. will operate in other country’s cyberspace whenever necessary to prevent, and respond to, hostile cyber operations mounted by those countries or by others countries or groups from or through their territory. The legality of the operations, according to Professor Schmitt, depends on the nature of the cyber operations to which they respond, the identity of the attacker, and the type and severity of the U.S. cyber response.
The Naval War College provides post graduate education in national security and strategic affairs for mid-career and senior officers and senior government civilians from the United States and other nations. It is home to the Stockton Center for International Law, widely recognised as the world’s premier think tank in operational law. Professor Schmitt is the former Chairman of the Stockton Center and currently Professor Emeritus at the College.
The University of Reading Law School now offers an Executive Education in International Cyber Law program for government officials from around the world. The week-long seminars, which are led by Professor Mike Schmitt (who recently joined the Law School), explore how international law applies in the cyber context during both peace and war. They are designed to equip officials to both deal with major cyber incidents and develop their own national legal policies and strategies. Participants come from ministries of foreign affairs and defence, attorney general offices, the armed forces, law enforcement agencies, and cyber agencies.
These seminars are sponsored by the governments of the Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, United States, Canada, and United Kingdom, as well as the Organization of American States and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Most are regionally oriented so as to facilitate cooperative responses to hostile cyber operations from States and non-State actors. This year, depending on travel restrictions, the program will be offered in Vietnam, Singapore, Fiji, Austria, Albania, Germany, Argentina, Peru and a number of “to be determined” locations.
Michael Schmitt has been appointed Professor of International Law at Reading Law School. He is also the Francis Lieber Distinguished Scholar at West Point, a Strauss Center Distinguished Scholar at the University of Texas, Senior Fellow at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Center of Excellence, and Professor Emeritus at the US Naval War College. The General Editor of the journal International Law Studies and the Oxford University Press book series, The Lieber Studies, Professor Schmitt is a member of the US Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on International Law and sits on the boards of many publications and professional organizations. He is also a life member of the US Council of Foreign Relations and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts. In 2017, Professor Schmitt was awarded the Order of the Cross of Terra Marianna by the President of Estonia for his work in cyber security.
