Defining priorities
There is no shortage of potential initiatives for a middle-powers campaign. Some could focus on protecting or reforming existing institutions or rules; others on formulating new approaches to old problems, or devising new rules in emerging policy areas. Two of the issues discussed above – climate change and international trade – are obvious candidates for such a campaign, the first because of its impact on human livelihoods everywhere, and the second because escalating tit-for-tat protectionism could wreak ruinous effects on the global economy. There is also a need to ‘backfill’ in areas where the US has been disengaging, such as multilateral support for family planning and safe abortion (where the latter is legal). What matters most, however, is that countries that have been calling for action now take on this responsibility themselves. They need to assemble and lead issue-specific coalitions in policy areas that matter to them and their partners.
Below are three examples of possible initiatives: to modernize the international migration regime; to establish new rules for cybersecurity; and to uphold norms against state assassination, kidnapping and ‘hostage diplomacy’. Each would involve a different constellation of partners, but all would require leadership, ambition and organization.
The migration crisis
The international regime for managing migration and refugees is broken. The UN estimated that there were a record 258 million international migrants in 2017, compared with 173 million in 2000 and 84 million in 1970.26 According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of forcibly displaced people in the world also reached a record high of 68.5 million in 2018.27 In addition to creating humanitarian crises of unprecedented scale, mass movements of people across borders risk destabilizing governments and regions. The rise of illiberal populism in Europe can be partly attributed to a nativist reaction to the arrival in the continent of nearly two million refugees and migrants from Africa and the Middle East since 2014. Although these arrivals peaked in 2015–16, migration pressures in Europe and elsewhere are likely to remain strong. In addition, protracted refugee situations – where large populations are stuck in exile for more than five years – can become breeding grounds for hopelessness and radicalization.28
The rise of illiberal populism in Europe can be partly attributed to a nativist reaction to the arrival in the continent of nearly two million refugees and migrants since 2014
Addressing these pressures requires a more concerted effort to alleviate the causes of population flows from source countries, along with a new approach to sharing responsibility for resettling refugees. As Lloyd Axworthy, the chair of the World Refugee Council, stated in 2018: ‘The current approach is neither politically nor financially sustainable, nor does it afford refugees the protections and prospects that basic human dignity demands’.29 However, multilateral responses have had limited success to date. The Global Compact for Migration, concluded in 2018 under UN auspices, was a non-binding list of largely aspirational goals. Worse, the compact became the target of a misinformation campaign by a ‘global network of nationalist, far-right activists’.30
A different approach is needed. A smaller group of capable countries – along with civil society organizations and private foundations – should develop their own plurilateral initiative, focusing on specific migration source countries, displaced populations, and transit routes. More than anything else, the migration crisis is a development problem: its biggest driver is lack of economic opportunity, followed by conflict and persecution. Once established, the plurilateral coalition could also press for changes to strengthen the international refugee regime, including more reliable financing mechanisms.31 It could also launch a further initiative to improve the prospects for millions of children and youths living in the purgatory of protracted refugee situations. Many of these children are receiving no formal education and have bleak employment prospects – a time bomb of hopelessness. Aiming to provide 100 per cent of these young people with quality primary education and skills training would be an ambitious goal, and is achievable if a multi-stakeholder coalition, backed by a group of committed mid-sized states, makes it a priority.
Cybersecurity
There is an urgent need for new rules and norms in cyberspace. Digital threats to national security, critical infrastructure, domestic political systems, the global economy, and privacy are growing. A malicious hack disabling just one major cloud service could cause losses of $53 billion, according to the insurer Lloyd’s, or roughly the same amount of financial damage as could be inflicted by the costliest tropical cyclone on record.32 Yet this would be nothing compared to the destructiveness of cyber conflicts that escalated into larger attacks, or even armed confrontations, as David Sanger explains in The Perfect Weapon.33
UN-sponsored efforts to devise cyberspace rules for international security have recently reached an impasse. Since 2010, a series of Groups of Governmental Experts (GGE) have put forward various norms for responsible state behaviour in cyberspace. A GGE report in 2013, for example, helped to establish the fundamental principle – supported by the US, Russia and China – that international law is applicable to cyberspace.34 However, the most recent GGE, in June 2017, failed to reach a consensus due to disagreements over the application of international legal principles – such as self-defence, state responsibility and countermeasures, and international humanitarian law – to this domain.35
In a separate initiative in November 2018, however, 51 countries and more than 250 private organizations signed a declaration – entitled the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace – condemning ‘malicious cyber activities’ that harm individuals or critical infrastructure.36 Signatories pledged to work together to prevent attacks, the theft of intellectual property, and interference in electoral processes, inter alia.37 The involvement of global information technology companies in this initiative – including Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Samsung – was noteworthy. If there is any hope of establishing and upholding international norms in this field, states and private actors will need to collaborate closely. Since early 2017, several companies have put forward proposals, including Microsoft’s call for a Digital Geneva Convention, which would prohibit states from launching cyberattacks against critical infrastructure, private-sector targets and intellectual property, and Siemens’ Charter of Trust, which proposes global cyber norms.38
If there is any hope of establishing and upholding international norms, states and private actors will need to collaborate closely
Although the Paris Call sets out important principles, the means by which these will be enforced are less clearly defined. The next, more difficult, step is to devise a mechanism for identifying violators and bringing them to justice. While the ultimate goal should be a global agreement including the world’s major cyber powers, the difficulty of reaching universal agreement – illustrated by the impasse in the UN GGE – suggests that the most productive approach is to build regulatory arrangements among a subset of like-minded states, and then to encourage other states to join this system. It will be a difficult task. The list of countries that signed the Paris Call – a diverse community, including Canada, Colombia, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Qatar, Senegal and South Korea – does not include several nations with advanced cyberattack capabilities: notably China, Iran, North Korea, Russia and the US. Furthermore, the agreement also failed to cover particularly sensitive issues, such as espionage and offensive operations.39 Nevertheless, the Paris Call has established a foundation upon which to build. Mid-sized countries and large private corporations have an opportunity, if not the responsibility, to map out the core elements of a new regime, solicit broader support, and begin enforcing whichever parts they can.
Assassination, kidnapping and ‘hostage diplomacy’
A growing number of countries have been venturing abroad to threaten, kidnap or assassinate their adversaries and critics in recent years. Between 2001 and 2009, according to the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the CIA abducted at least 119 suspected terrorists from locations around the world and transported them to secret CIA-run prisons, where at least 39 were subjected to ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’.40 More recently, the Russian state has been implicated in the disappearance or death in suspicious circumstances of certain overseas dissidents. The attempted poisoning of a former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter in the UK in March 2018 (which was followed by the death of a British citizen who accidentally came into contact with the discarded remains of the poison) was broadly seen as an example of extraterritorial score-settling by the government of President Vladimir Putin. This speculation appeared to be confirmed when the two men charged with the attack by the British authorities were identified by independent investigators as active Russian intelligence agents.41 Chinese security agents have also reportedly conducted kidnappings abroad. In 2015, five people connected with a Hong Kong-based bookseller and publishing house disappeared; the following year, the mainland Chinese police confirmed that these individuals were being investigated on suspicion of illegal activities. One man, Gui Minhai, was reported to have been snatched from his apartment in Thailand.42 In another case, democracy campaigner Li Xin disappeared while travelling by train in Thailand (where he had sought political asylum) in January 2016, surfacing one month later in police custody in China, and claiming to have returned voluntarily.43 Other Chinese dissidents have reportedly been seized in Myanmar and Vietnam.44
In another case provoking international outrage, in October 2018, a team of Saudi agents deployed to Istanbul murdered and dismembered a dissident journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate – a crime that the Saudi regime acknowledged when Turkish officials publicized surveillance footage and other damning evidence. However, Turkey has conducted its own aggressive campaign to silence suspected opponents at home and abroad. Since a failed 2016 coup against his government, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has sought to repatriate supporters of a former political rival, whom he has accused of orchestrating the coup attempt. In April 2018, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag publicly bragged that Turkish intelligence services had seized at least 80 Turkish nationals from multiple countries.45 In an apparent example of one such attempt in July 2018, a Turkish educator was abducted in Mongolia and taken to a private aeroplane whose call sign matched that of the Turkish Air Force. She was released only after Mongolian authorities grounded the flight.46
The use of ‘hostage diplomacy’ may also be on the rise.47 China’s detention of two Canadian citizens in December 2018 – in apparent retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, following an extradition request from the US – seemed to be an attempt by Beijing to coerce Canada into suspending its extradition proceedings and releasing Meng.48 In January 2019, a prominent Australian writer, Yang Hengjun, who had previously renounced his Chinese nationality, arrived at Guangzhou airport and was promptly arrested on suspicion of endangering China’s national security – the same grounds that Chinese authorities cited for detaining the two Canadians.49 These apparently arbitrary arrests of foreign nationals represent a potential threat to the citizens of any country that displeases Beijing.
Such behaviours by national governments are eroding important restraints on international conduct. Worse, they risk normalizing murder, kidnapping and arbitrary detention as forms of statecraft. Mid-sized powers can and should work together to counter this trend – by publicizing such events, coming to each other’s assistance when their citizens are targeted, and penalizing perpetrators when it is feasible to do so. The alternative is to stand aside as the rule of law gradually gives way to the law of the jungle – a world in which mid-sized countries would face even graver dangers.
26 International Organization for Migration (2017), ‘Migration Data Portal’, https://migrationdataportal.org/?i=stock_abs_&t=2017 (accessed 16 Apr. 2019); International Organization for Migration (2018), World Migration Report, https://www.iom.int/wmr/world-migration-report-2018 (accessed 16 Apr. 2019). The International Organization for Migration defines ‘international migrants’ as people living in a country other than their country of birth.
27 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2018), ‘Forced displacement at record 68.5 million’, https://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2018/6/5b222c494/forced-displacement-record-685-million.html (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
28 UNHCR defines a ‘protracted refugee situation’ as one in which ‘25,000 or more refugees from the same nationality have been in exile for five consecutive years or more in a given asylum country’.
29 World Refugee Council Interim Report (2018), Transforming the Global Refugee System: Solidarity, Humanity and Accountability, Centre for International Governance Innovation, 10 April 2018, https://www.cigionline.org/publications/transforming-global-refugee-system-solidarity-humanity-and-accountability (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
30 Cerulus, L. and Schaart, E. (2019), ‘How the UN migration pact got trolled’, Politico, 3 January 2019, https://www.politico.eu/article/united-nations-migration-pact-how-got-trolled (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
31 World Refugee Council Final Report (2019), A Call to Action: Transforming the Global Refugee System, https://www.worldrefugeecouncil.org/sites/default/files/documents/WRC_Call_to_Action.pdf (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
32 Lloyd’s (2017), ‘Extreme cyber-attack could cost as much as Superstorm Sandy’, 17 July 2017, https://www.lloyds.com/news-and-risk-insight/press-releases/2017/07/cyber-attack-report (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
33 Sanger, D. (2018), The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age, New York: Crown Publishing Group.
34 United Nations (2013), ‘Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security’, General Assembly document no. A/68/98, 24 June 2013.
35 Korzak, E. (2017), ‘The UN GGE on cybersecurity: the end of an era?’, The Diplomat, 31 July 2017, https://thediplomat.com/
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36 Government of France, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2018), ‘Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace’, 12 November 2018, https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/paris_call_text_-_en_cle06f918.pdf (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
37 The Group of Seven (G7) also created a ‘rapid response mechanism’, at its Charlevoix Summit of June 2018, ‘to strengthen coordination across the G7 in identifying, preventing and responding to threats to G7 democracies’. Democratic Institutions (2019), ‘G7 Rapid Response Mechanism’, 30 January 2019, https://www.canada.ca/en/democratic-institutions/news/2019/
01/g7-rapid-response-mechanism.html (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
38 Smith, B. (2017), ‘The need for a Digital Geneva Convention’, Microsoft On the Issues blog, 14 February 2017, https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2017/02/14/need-digital-geneva-convention (accessed 16 Apr. 2019); Siemens (n.d.), ‘Charter of Trust for a secure digital world’, https://assets.new.siemens.com/siemens/assets/public.1552654703.a0dce9a0-164c-431e-91a9-2ed3be663108.charteroftrust-2019-en-online.pdf (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
39 Laudrain, A. (2018), ‘Avoiding a World War Web: The Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace’, Lawfare, 4 December 2018, https://www.lawfareblog.com/avoiding-world-war-web-paris-call-trust-and-security-cyberspace (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
40 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2012), ‘Committee study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s detention and interrogation program’, Declassified version with redactions, 13 December 2012, https://fas.org/irp/congress/2014_rpt/ssci-rdi.pdf (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
41 Simmons, A. (2018), ‘Second U.K. Spy-Poisoning Suspect Identified as Russian Military Doctor’, Wall Street Journal, 9 October 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/second-spy-poisoning-suspect-identified-as-russian-military-doctor-1539069356 (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
42 Holmes, O. and Phillips, T. (2015), ‘Gui Minhai: the strange disappearance of a publisher who riled China’s elite’, The Guardian, 8 December 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/08/gui-minhai-the-strange-disappearance-
of-a-publisher-who-riled-chinas-elite (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
43 Demick, B. (2016), ‘Why did China kidnap its provocateurs?’, New Yorker, 16 February 2016, https://www.newyorker.com/
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44 Dorfman, Z. (2018), ‘The disappeared’, Foreign Policy, 29 March 2018, https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-renditions-kidnapping (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
45 Cunningham, E. (2018), ‘Turkey says its global dragnet has seized dozens of its citizens in 18 countries’, Washington Post, 5 April 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/turkey-says-its-global-dragnet-has-seized-dozens-of-its-citizens-in-18-countries/2018/04/05/3e4c144a-38d1-11e8-af3c-2123715f78df_story.html (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
46 Beech, H. (2018), ‘Turkish School Leader Abducted, and Released, in Mongolia’, New York Times, 28 July 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/28/world/europe/turkish-school-leader-abducted-and-released-in-mongolia.html (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
47 Clarke, D. (2019), ‘China’s Hostage Diplomacy’, Lawfare, 11 January 2019, https://www.lawfareblog.com/chinas-hostage-diplomacy-0 (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
48 Paris, R. (2019), ‘Canada Is on the Front Lines of Challenges to Rule of Law’, Chatham House Expert Comment, 25 January 2019, https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/canada-front-lines-challenges-rule-law (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).
49 Dixon, R. (2019), ‘China’s arrest of Australian writer is called ‘hostage diplomacy’, Los Angeles Times, 24 January 2019, https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-china-writer-arrested-20190124-story.html (accessed 16 Apr. 2019).