The recent announcement at the Singapore International Cyber Week 2018 (SICW 2018) that the Republic would propose a mechanism to enhance Asean cyber coordination highlights the group’s willingness to chart a way forward on rules for state behaviour in cyberspace. Read together with Asean’s renewed commitment to cyber norms, it also shows a new direction the region is taking.

The announcement was made by the Asean Ministerial Conference on Cybersecurity (AMCC), which agreed that Singapore would propose a mechanism to enhance Asean cyber coordination. This mechanism is intended to discuss cyber diplomacy, policy and operational issues.

This mechanism should involve cooperation between the private and public sectors and academia of the Asean Member States. AMCC also agreed to subscribe in-principle to the eleven voluntary, non-binding norms recommended in the lengthily named 2015 Report of the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security or UNGGE (hereafter referred to as “the eleven UNGGE 2015 norms”).

… Benjamin Ang is a senior fellow at the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU).