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

Good afternoon, I think we are ready to make a start. If I can please invite you to take your seats and 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. Okay, welcome once again to this side event organized by UNIDIR, the UN Institute for Disarmament Research. I'm Giacomo Persipoli, 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 roundtable to be joined by excellent speakers that will will alternate in taking the floor. Here on my right, my colleague and co-editor of the publication that we're launching today, Dr. Samuele Dominioni. To his right, sorry, Ms. Catherine Preisman from UNODA. And here on my left, Ms. Julia Rodriguez from the Permanent Mission of El Salvador to the United Nations. 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 Samuel's worst nightmare over the last nine months to try to aggregate in one single publication the analysis of five years of negotiations. And 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 gonna give you a quick overview of the publication and Samuele will run you over some of the key findings. It's almost a 300 pages report, so we're not gonna 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 Samuele, 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, so it's the compilation of inputs from several authors. And 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 of 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 know, just go on, you can scan it or go on Slido or Slido.com and then put OWG as the hashtag. I'm gonna leave it there for a second if you want to scan it. And there you'll be able to submit your questions. We have the moderation team that is reviewing them. Assuming they are reasonable questions, they will all be then released and you can upvote or add your own questions as well. This is the publication I was mentioning. 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? And 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 of behind the rationale of why we decided that this was a good idea. You can, you know, 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, sort of 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. In addition, of course, we were all very happy to celebrate last summer the consensus report that was approved by the OEWG. However, building a consensus report inevitably resulted in the exclusion or in the paraphrasing or in the 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. 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 the chair didn't think that it was didn't produce the same equivalent document. So we thought that there was really 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 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. And then ultimately, the last bullet is probably the most important one. We really want to give you an opportunity to keep building on 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 know, 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. So the structure of this report, it's kind of unsurprising introduction, of course, if you kind of cut the head and the tail with the introduction and the kind of cross-cutting analysis, the core of this report consists of the various items that were discussed as part of the OEWG. 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, you know, we needed to find a way of structuring our analysis and we decided to use kind of 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. So you can kind of see it on the slide, it's a little bit small, but the first cycle included the first three sessions, La deuxième session, la quatrième et la cinquième, puis la troisième et la quatrième, c'étaient des blocs de trois sessions chacune. Bien sûr, la façon dont vous avez tous abordé les négociations a changé. Les premières négociations dans les cycles étaient principalement axées sur le fond, alors que the last negotiation of each cycle was predominantly focusing on discussing language for the outcome documents. So this is, of course, a nuance that we've taken into account. Once Amwale will also show the methodology, he can elaborate more on that. This is my favorite slide to show you. How much data do we actually process? 3000, I would not read it out loud just because I think it gives, it makes a different impression than reading it, but 3210 interventions over 11 sessions, 912 written statements that were submitted by states, 198 working papers submitting by states, almost 280 hours of recordings, 105 meetings that were held over the 100 over the 11 sessions and 2 million words was the the size of the corpus of text that we had to analyze in a variety of methods and you 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 UNIDIR we value the multi-stakeholder community, how much we value the impact and the contribution they can make. But because their contributions wasn't always, there wasn't like an official track record of their contribution in the same way in which we had it with which 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. So we may, if Samuele 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. And I think something else that I wanted to flag here before giving the floor to Samuele, which may, 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 transcripts, translations, which might not necessarily be as accurate as your own words sometimes. So 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 kind of 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. So just a little caveat there. But with that, I think it's now time for Samuele to run us a little bit through the main findings, please.

Non, non, il y a un autre. OK, merci beaucoup. Euh, oui, je veux dire, c'était une énorme quantité de données, comme vous pouvez, euh, comme vous pouvez, comme vous pouvez comprendre. And to tackle it in a way that was useful for research purposes, we really need to have a kind of grounded methodology to address all these data, otherwise it would be easier to get lost in all these transcripts, all these statements and so on and so forth. The methodology that we followed, I mean, maybe is not as much as relevant as maybe 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 proper 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 informations that remain confidential or are not publicly accessible. So our analysis didn't take those data into account. Um, so the research questions more or less are already, uh, clear, uh, Giacomo already mentioned them, but, uh, 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. 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 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 the report itself. Once we had the data all systematized, we indeed started the proper analysis and we did it through manual and software coding, trying to identify for each statement, for each paragraph, what kind of topic they were addressing, in which way, also sentiment analysis, and really trying to find some sort of 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. 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 like more information rather than just raw data. And 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. 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. And 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. So 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. And 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. So we really wanted to make sure that we were not only going toward the only one kind of understanding of the themes and topics discussed, addressing in the report. Ok, 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. So the first one is that the early sessions of the OWG were somehow characterized by a reaffirmation of the previous work done by the OWG and the reports of the GGEs. And this was somehow something observed on each agenda item. Everywhere states were reaffirming the Aki or the framework of responsible state behavior and its validity. After that, I would say probably around the second, toward the third cycle, so we are talking about after the first annual progress report toward the second 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 were looking for the operationalization of specific uh, teams or, or, or topic. I mean, I have the example there of the global point of contact directory, uh, or the chairs norm implementation checklist. And so this kind of, uh, of, uh, of, uh, proposals really, uh, made a move, a shift from reaffirmation of previous commitment to, uh, new, uh, a new phase, uh, in terms of negotiation. And 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, so real world event, and in terms of knowledge. Delegation started to become much more skilled or knowledgeable about what they were addressing. They were discussing from policy to technical and legal issues and they really became or came more and more prepared to discuss the topics on the agenda. And on the other side, the discussion 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 standpoint, but also 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, it concerns the increased representations of both states and in terms of speakers, the gender of the speakers. And on this, 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 slight increase in terms of number of states that took the floor across the 11 Uh, sessions, uh, we started off around 77 states, uh, up to 92 in the tenth session and, uh, down again to 83, but this, you can see an average, uh, increase in terms of states that took the floor, uh, throughout the five years. And if we break down per UN regional groupings, we have an example of a particular positive example, for example, the African group really almost doubled, actually in one occasion doubled the number of states that took the floor throughout the sessions, starting off 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 slight decrease in terms of states taking the floor during the negotiation session, the one that are circled, so the third, fifth, eighth and eleventh, 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 then negotiating a text, there might be some more challenges for all states to meaningfully engage in negotiations. So this is something that we may take into consideration also for the upcoming, for the ongoing GMAC negotiation on the GMAC. en termes de genre, il a commencé assez mal en termes de représentation des femmes, mais il a légèrement augmenté au milieu du WG, et puis la représentation des femmes est toujours restée au-dessus de la ligne des 50%. Et il faut aussi remercier des initiatives comme Women in Cyber pour avoir contribué à cette réussite. Parlons slide one on what facilitate the consensus and one on what actually hamper the more ambitious outcome for what we can see from our data. There are three main factors that facilitated consensus. And first of all, it's the work of you that were sitting in the room. As 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. So 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 his team. work, 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. Et une autre caractéristique que le président avait, et si je ne me trompe pas, je l'ai déjà entendue dans la salle hier, c'était l'importance des questions directrices. Et les questions directrices se sont avérées particulièrement efficaces pour que les États et les délégations viennent préparés. and so avoiding general statements, but already trying to address some specific issues that then helped the discussions to be much more concrete and pragmatic. In some cases, the guiding questions helped to overcome some stalemate, and we can talk about it if you are interested. Et enfin, le travail des organes de l'ONU, du secrétariat, ils ont fait un travail splendide, à la fois d'un point de vue administratif, mais aussi plus d'un point de vue substantiel, en préparant tous les rapports techniques, même les rapports techniques qui ont été très utiles pour recueillir les points de vue des États sur de nombreuses questions différentes, à partir desquelles les négociations pourraient prendre une autre tournure. substance to proceed further. And then, I mean, I don't want to praise ourself, but, and ITU, but we also did help the development or at least increasing, hopefully, the understanding of some of the aspects, including the global round table on capacity building, the simulation on the point of contact directory, where both us and ITU 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 kind of a a cleavage between those states that were more in favor of developing additional elements of the framework of responsible state behavior and those who were much more keen to focus on the implementation. So despite the fact there are delegations that are sustaining that these two approaches are not mutually exclusive, nevertheless, in several agenda items, these tensions resulted in slowing down the development of, sorry, 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 war, but also like major cyber incidents. autour du monde. Et le dernier point est sur, je dirais, une sorte de caution que les États avaient en termes de développement de mesures qui étaient considérées comme portant trop sur la souveraineté, ou quand ces propositions mettaient trop de fardeau sur les États. And 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. I would say that there is a generally positive outlook that international cooperation on these themes is both necessary and possible despite the international environment. international security environment. And also, I would like to stress the importance, I already did it while I was talking about the approach of the chair, of adopting an incremental approach to topics, let the ideas circulate, maybe at one time it doesn't land well, but maybe then it gets back in circulation because of other Uh, uh, other, uh, concomitants is another, uh, uh, things that happens, then the, uh, the same idea may be, uh, much more welcome or much more, uh, uh, uh, um, digested by delegation, so really the importance of adopting this incremental approach. And also the value of the guidance and support the delegation needs to have. And here I would like to underline the importance of practical exercises. This is something that we did also with UNIDIR and was particularly positively received. Simulations, TTX, and so on and so forth. This really helped to have states not only talking about, for example, international law, but also like how do we do it? And if we do it with a fictional scenario, it becomes much more to then go deep into the aspects that still need to be further developed. And then last but not least, the institutional memory. So we really hope that with this report, we contribute somehow to retain this institutional memory of the EWG, the process that has been done for new delegates, but also to kind of learn on good practices that prove to be successful in the previous year and so continue the path of developing a common understanding on how ICTs impact international security. Thank you.

Thank you, Samuele, 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 Samuele highlighted as a cross-cutting or high-level finding, you will find it elaborated with its own specific nuances in each individual chapter. So I do invite you to go back to it. Thanks for putting up again the Slido QR code. We're going to leave it there for a moment. But now I would like to invite Catherine, please, to share your views and remarks on this work.

Thanks, Giacomo, and thank you very much, Unadir, and congratulations on the launch of the publication. I have read it cover to cover because I was one of the external experts. So it's a good read, you know, if you want to relive it. I had a little PTSD at some moments. But no, it was, it's an excellent resource. And so that's actually where I wanted to start and pick up from what Samuel said in his slide, the importance of institutional memory. And UNIDIR has given us all a great gift by doing this report. I mean, I can't 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. And collating all this kind of data and information is a massive resource. And 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, like the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons or POA on small arms processes. Il y a des gens qui sont très, très, très, très, très, très, très, très, trè maintaining that institutional memory is so critical. So this document is really important now, but I think even, you know, in five, ten years, it will be even more important because who knows where we all will be. And I think what it does is that it speaks to sort of 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. And this document provides that basis to build upon by really having that data and detail about what has been achieved. So really chapeau for excellent work. et aussi aider à rendre le travail du secrétariat plus facile, d'avoir un endroit où aller. Mais j'ai aussi été invité à faire quelques commentaires, en dehors de la publication, mais dans le contexte de la publication, dans une sorte de format continue, start, stop. if if I recall correctly from some Wally's instructions um and um 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 of looking forward so a couple of reflections and sort of this what should we continue what should we start and what might we want to stop um so continue well I think first and foremost we want to continue this regular consultation, in the sense that the OEWG was never just a week or two weeks of meetings a year. And I think that that was a culture that the chair, the ambassador Gaffar instituted. So always talked about how it was a community and how, you know, when the delegates, when we came back together, it was sort of a, you know, a meet and greet again. He would do his coffee breaks to give time to for delegates to speak with each other and constant town halls, side events, POC activities, you know, 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, we 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 Samuel mentioned, even in just sort of the takeaways, is embracing consensus for what that means for outcomes. Consensus is an imperfect principle. It's an imperfect construct in the UN. And it... Je pense que c'est une question qui est très importante et qui nécessite une flexibilité de la part de toutes les parties prenantes. Cela signifie que les positions maximalistes ou toutes les propositions qui sont mises sur la table, comme l'ont dit nos collègues, ne seront pas retenues en fin de compte. Je pense que c'est quelque chose qui a été vraiment understood and came through. So, of course, delegations were not happy every time the progress report was adopted or when the last, 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, you know, what gaps did some delegations see. And so 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. And so we heard a lot about this yesterday, of course, we had a healthy exchange. It's not a perfect mechanism. There's, you know, 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 round tables, it's events that were held last week. 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. 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. I mean, 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 3200 something statements. And 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 engage them directly, asking for advice. I know that I do the same. So 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 impact 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. Et c'est particulièrement important pour mettre les DTG sur la bonne voie, les groupes thématiques dédiés. Alors, qu'est-ce qu'on a besoin de commencer? On a besoin de les mettre en bonne position, où ils sont vraiment complémentaires des discussions de la plénière, et on les aide à remplir leur fonction, qui n'est pas de dupliquer les plénières, mais vraiment d'offrir quelque chose de nouveau à travers leurs modalités distinctes. Et puis finalement, je pense que dès le début, ce qu'il faut faire, c'est tirer parti de la valeur d'un mécanisme permanent. C'est quelque chose qui, comme l'a dit Giacomo, cinq ans, c'est très long, et c'était en soi inhabituel, mais maintenant c'est encore plus inhabituel, c'est permanent. And we have a cyclical understanding of five years, but it's still, you know, 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. And I think that urgency still needs to come through in the cyclical discussions. And because we have the value of a permanent mechanism, is to diversify ownership among chairs and among leadership. I think we had a unique chair. in the OEWG, who brought so much and helped us facilitate so much progress. And then now with this new mechanism, we see the value of ownership amongst different regions, among different countries with different national priorities and approaches. And I think this is really, really valuable. So then, just to wrap up, in terms of what to quote stop, I'm a 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. Il y a un point que notre haute représentante a soulevé à maintes reprises, c'est qu'il y a des questions qui recueilleront un soutien plus large que d'autres. C'est un fait. Des questions comme le renforcement des capacités, peut-être, nous nous retrouvons un peu plus d'accord et le récit est un peu plus 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, you know, trigger rights of reply or difficult exchanges, but they're, needs to have, we need to have those discussions. And I think it's, there's, there's no better place and there is, this is the only place as a single track mechanism to have those discussions. So I think we should stop shying away from those difficult issues. And then finally, I would say we need to stop only focusing on maybe what individual delegation or what 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 were in the OEWG, as 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. So, and I think that's a positive, you know, 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. So 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 is really will be important, not just for this process now, but in future cycles. Thanks.

Thank you, Catherine. Judy, over to you.

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 you know, the colleagues were saying, this is a valuable resource to go and, you know, 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, a student, a university that are trying to understand cyber diplomacy and the value of these multilateral process on it. So I think it is a really good resource on that sense. I like that, of course, it recognizes the evolution of these processes within the UN as It is very important for us to understand. I mean, these processes did not, were born in isolation. They respond to a specific context. And, you know, we're building from those governments of, from those GGEs and, you know, then evolve until what we have in the form of the OEWG, the first one and then the second one that it is a very, nor mentioning that. uh un processes do not tend to last that long 11 plenary session is a lot we were discussing uh with Catherine before that and I think that I have come to appreciate the uh role of ambassador gaffur more now in the chair team because it does take a lot and I think that particularly for a smaller delegations each each session takes a lot of whole amount of preparation and as you know many colleagues here from uh small delegation do you Vous savez, beaucoup d'entre vous sont mes collègues au sein de la commission FRESH. Nous ne nous occupons pas seulement de la cybersécurité, nous avons de gros dossiers sur le nucléaire, sur les armes non conventionnelles. La majorité d'entre nous s'occupent également du Conseil de sécurité, qui se réunit tous les jours. Il est donc important de mettre cela en perspective. It is very important the point that you mentioned on institutional memory, really important as you know 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. So we kind of like have to play with that, like this is my best effort to compromise, which is what Ambassador Gafu did. A lot of people were happy, a lot of people were unhappy. You kind of like have to maintain that balance. And it's kind of like the approach that we have, you know, 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 kind of like have to lay out something that you know that at least is going to allow us to move forward. And 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 gradient submissions, all the working papers, that is something that, you know, from the chair's perspective, we also do kind of like go through all that you send. So I will definitely encourage you some while, you know, those delegations that kind of like share that for institutional memory, those are posted. they were posted in the OEWG website and they will be posted in the global mechanism website. It is important even for our delegations that sometimes listen to something and they want to really understand or, you know, get further down understanding. So it is important to that. So I saw that you use AI tools, very good. The positive side of it, besides on the thread that we were listening on this morning, I mean, with that data set, 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, you know, having participated in that discussion, notice how, as you say, the quality of the statement kind of like pick up, like delegates start like coming like 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 Catherine was saying, this duality between do we need new norms, the norms that we had are enough, and of course the discussion on international law, that it's really one of the most difficult throughout this process. So as you were all very well aware, you know, we started planning session yesterday and I think that this report captures like 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 kind of like 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 kind of like get, you know, after 25 years, focus on implementation, which is really well. And, you know, I think that the legacy of the OEWG will continue with us, like, you know, even beyond the first biennium, 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. So I just want to, before closing, because I would like to hear, and colleagues, it is very important what Katharine mentioned about this to be a multi-track and multi-stakeholder process. we, the chair's 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, you know, to that, to embrace what's difficult. We do, as you know, chair team have a lot of recommendations for the review conference because while we were given to kind of like, you know, start and kick this mechanism to work, it was, there are a lot of like, different interpretation on those modalities. We have done what we believe was best, you know, drawing from existing UN practice, but I think it will be really important for us in a moment and for us, I mean, the Member States to kind of like exactly write 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 are creating a practice. We hope it is a good one that we will continue. But if not, I mean, the mechanism itself, we design to having those stop moments every five years to say, okay, what worked, what didn't, what can we do better? And I think it is a really well crafted structure on that side. And lastly, of course, the support of UNIDIR has been fundamental in the AWG, will be fundamental in the global mechanism and of course our wonderful secretary Catherine is 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. Thank you.

All right, thank you so much, Catherine and Julie, again, for sharing your views. We now have about 10, 15 minutes where we can collect inputs from the room. I also see some questions online. I'll just pick quickly on two 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 the idea of, we've been thinking actually, if we project ourselves in five years, four years, and we had 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. And we were lucky that in this year, we had enough resources to do it, but that might not be the case in the future. So perhaps there is value in doing this more regularly and then perhaps do like a cross-cutting analysis every five years, but capture these insights more regularly. So work in progress. And then, of course, there's an interesting question and also got a like on the platform from colleagues at first around, you know, the, you know, it's more of a comment than a question, but around, you know, looking forward to participate in a similar publication that will acknowledge the contribution of the multi-stakeholder community. And 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. And we could not, you could not have not, you could, you could not have achieved what you have achieved without the stakeholders. And 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 contribution are not systematically captured the same way in which the state's interventions were. So 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 it 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. And as a research institute, we really wanted this report to be evidence-driven, and that's why we kind of parked that piece of the puzzle for the moment, but not for good. And actually, reflecting on something we were discussing with Andrea earlier, I think Yesterday, in another side 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, you know, acknowledge where you're getting that information from, because it's even ****** 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. So, would you like to kind of take over the moderation of the Q&A for the time that we have left?

Yeah. Oh, gosh. From this side first, and then we go to Sherif, and then on this side.

Right, thank you. Karolina Inge from the delegation of Vanuatu. I would sort of highlight how the OEWG 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 a Pacific Island Forum. And throughout the course of the OEWG, that changed. By the end of the OEWG, 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 sort of this confidence being built among our member states on various other technical issues as well. So I'd sort of just like to make the point that the OWG will always be sort of 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. So I'm really looking forward to listening or to reading it. But one of my question is where are the observers? Like 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 of what Catherine mentioned about being optimistic about the process. Fourteen years ago, I was a member of the GGE and I was the only member from Africa and the Middle East, imagine almost 70 countries. 2000000 2000000 people with just one representative South and Central America had just one representative. We love it to increase the size of the GGE, which happened a year later. We love it for a permanent mechanism that was overwhelmingly voted against at that point in time and, you know, 14 years ago. So I am very optimistic to be here and witness that we have now an endorsed, you know, 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 open-ended working group as well as the second, because getting consensus in a room full of countries and stakeholders, that was a huge job. And thanks again for everybody contributing to this. So 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 you know, there are mechanisms when you have an open, you know, an inclusive discussion, including all the States, all the stakeholders. So 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. Before, okay, maybe we will respond then to all the questions, please.

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 Ellen Creedadeal and I am the data focal point for the UN Major Group for Children and Youth. And 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. And that's really great because And so 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 legitimate peaceful social development. But then on the flip side, it can easily be used for identifying software vulnerabilities or bypassing defenses or launching cyber attacks. And so 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? And two, how can member states and research institutions formally partner with young digital natives and youth-led technical communities as active co-researchers rather than just 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. And I wanted to answer a question which came up online, which was about the data. So as you know, Developing capacity has the two 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. So if you're interested in that data science question with the two million words, please do come up and find me and we'd love to talk to you about that. I hope it won't be five years until the next one.

Sure. Very quickly, because I think we're out of time. So Silvia, coming to your question first. So the analysis is limited to state intervention. So we didn't include SCRC, 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. to be more robust, we decided to limit to that.

Je pense que vous pouvez m'entendre. Nous avons examiné les organisations régionales parce que c'était l'un des thèmes qui a émergé beaucoup tout au long des différents points à l'ordre du jour. Et donc, en fonction des chapitres, vous pouvez trouver des références à l'importance et au rôle des organisations régionales, dans la mesure où elles ont été mentionnées par les États. Et comme vous pouvez l'imaginer, les États ont fait référence à l'OCDE, à l'OSCE, à l'Union européenne, à plusieurs reprises. especially on CBMs about to which kind of regional organization states were looking at the most when we were discussing CBMs and you can imagine OAC came up quite quite a lot so yes it was included but indirectly through the statements of of states.

Thank you Samuel for adding that Yes, absolutely, there is reason to be optimistic if we look where we started, where we are now, and also building on your point about the stakeholders, we really have, 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 UNIDIR, we're kind of a neutral observer in this, we're kind of caught in the middle if you want. And there is of course a very active community of stakeholders that does a lot of important work, but sometimes it is difficult to really to put it together in a way that is trackable, that we can trace impact, that we can trace influence over certain processes. And 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? That'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 AI 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. So 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 better, you know-how to involve more like youth and digital natives. I think that is something that it'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. And again, I think that the DTGs is probably the best place to do that or the best moment to do it. And yes, thank you so much, David, for putting together the database was extremely helpful. We need, you know, this report is just scratching the surface of what surface of what data science can do, but data, the results of any sort of 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 kind of work being done in the future, you kind of have the keys of success here because if you give us good data, we'll be able to give you good analysis. If you don't give us good data, it's going to take a lot more work to get there. Catherine, so you're grabbing the microphone?

No, just on the point on sort of the dynamism of discussions, I mean, I think that this is just, as Giacomo 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 are just completely irreconcilable in a lot of ways. We do the best we can, but 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 Giacomo, 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 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 sort of where we are in terms of multilateralism. And then on youth, I mean, just to say, as UNODA, 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 interest 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.