Digital Harm and International Criminal Law

This book examines the promises and perils of pursuing accountability for digital harms under international criminal law (ICL).

Technology can be used as a new method of perpetrating existing international crimes, but it can also inflict novel harms that may only be adequately addressed by the creation of a new offence.

This book analyses how harm has been understood for core international crimes and how digital harms (such as online hate speech and disinformation, sharing footage of crimes online, mass surveillance, and online sexual violence) can be encompassed within definitions of those crimes. It considers theories of criminalisation to determine why digital harms should be criminalised, and explores relevant challenges, such as whether digital harms can meet the gravity threshold under ICL.

Further, obstacles to prosecuting digital harms at international criminal courts and tribunals (ICCTs) are considered, including jurisdiction, digital evidence concerns, and cooperation between ICCTs and States, private companies, and civil society. The book concludes with two case studies—the beheading of American journalist James Foley by ISIS, which was circulated online, and the digital surveillance used against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang, China—to illustrate how digital harms may be criminalised and prosecuted in practice.

Ultimately, the book argues that digital harms are like the harms traditionally encompassed by international crimes, and that these harms should be criminalised to provide justice to victims. As technology will continue to develop and serve as a vehicle for an increasing array of harms, accounting for digital harm should be an issue at the forefront of ICL.