How a new UN cybercrime treaty could be used to crack down on dissent
Even with human rights safeguards in place, the new convention risks giving authoritarian regimes new tools to target their critics.
A new United Nations treaty concerning cybercrime, formally called the Hanoi Convention, could potentially be utilized to suppress dissent. This treaty, adopted in December 2024 and opened for signing in October 2025, has garnered support from 72 countries, with only three countries thus far ratifying it: Azerbaijan, Qatar, and Vietnam.
The treaty aims to create a unified global framework for addressing cybercrime, including offenses such as hacking, digital sabotage, fraud, and online child sexual exploitation. However, critics argue that the treaty's vagueness in defining "serious crimes" could be exploited to target dissent.
The treaty's Article 2 grants states the ability to define what constitutes a "serious crime" using their own laws, which could potentially encompass online dissenting opinions. For democracies, this might cover activities like fraud or hacking. In contrast, authoritarian states could use this to prosecute online criticism, such as tweets or Instagram posts. Russia, the treaty's primary proposer, argued the treaty aimed at consolidating state control over information rather than combating cybercrime.
The treaty's jurisdiction terms are particularly concerning. Article 22 primarily relies on "nationality-based jurisdiction," allowing states to claim jurisdiction over their own citizens' conduct abroad. However, it significantly expands jurisdiction to include "passive personality jurisdiction," enabling a country to claim jurisdiction over any crime committed anywhere, by anyone, as long as the victim is one of its nationals.
This could potentially allow countries like Russia to pursue dissenters abroad, even if they have not committed a crime in the asserting country. For instance, Russia has declared certain LGBTQ+ collectives as "extremist" following the 2026 protests against the regime, which could lead to the targeting of LGBTQ+ individuals abroad for their online activity.
While countries can refuse data requests if the conduct is not criminal locally, the treaty encourages cooperation through the "widest measure of mutual legal assistance" in investigations. This could compel signatories to share data even for non-criminal conduct, further amplifying the potential for misuse. The treaty's implementation could lead to the monitoring and criminalization of online dissent, mirroring Orwell's vision of a society where watching never stops.
To mitigate these potential abuses, states can propose amendments and protocols once the treaty has been ratified by enough countries, ensuring human rights are respected. Additionally, ratified countries can make formal reservations emphasizing the need for human rights and bolster their domestic legal frameworks to prevent human rights violations under the treaty.
Written by urgent.news from The Conversation AU's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.
