Ahead of the third session of the Ad Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes, to be held from 29 August to 9 September 2022 in New York, and on behalf of the Committee Chair, H.E. Ms. Faouzia BOUMAIZA MEBARKI (Algeria), the secretariat informed Instutut de diplomatie publique, that informal consultations will be convened by the Committee Chair on Friday, 26 August 2022 from 3:00 to 5:00 P.M., New York local time.
Interested Doctor/Ph.D. and Professional members of the Institute are invited to confirm their participation by providing their name and participation modality (in-person or online) by Friday, 19 August. The informal consultation may not be convened if insufficient applications are received by the deadline, which will be informed in due course.
The informal consultations will be held in hybrid format, with participation in-person in Conference Room 1 (CR-1) of the United Nations Headquarters and online
About the Ad Hoc Committee
Through its resolution 74/247, the General Assembly decided to establish an open-ended ad hoc intergovernmental committee of experts, representative of all regions, to elaborate a comprehensive international convention on countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes, taking into full consideration existing international instruments and efforts at the national, regional and international levels on combating the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes, in particular the work and outcomes of the open-ended intergovernmental Expert Group to Conduct a Comprehensive Study on Cybercrime.
Pursuant to General Assembly resolution 74/247, the ad hoc committee convened a three-day organizational session in May 2021, in New York, in order to agree on an outline and modalities for its further activities, to be submitted to the General Assembly at its seventy-fifth session for its consideration and approval. The organizational session was originally scheduled to take place in August 2020 but due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the General Assembly decided through first its decision 74/567 of 14 August 2020 and then 75/555 of 15 January 2021 to postpone the organizational session of ad hoc committee to 10-12 May 2021.
On May 26 2021 the General Assembly adopted resolution 75/282, entitled "Countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes."
In the same resolution, the General Assembly decided, inter alia, that the Ad Hoc Committee shall convene at least six sessions, of 10 days each, to commence in January 2022, a concluding session in New York, and conclude its work in order to provide a draft convention to the General Assembly at its seventy-eighth session; it further decided that the Committee shall hold the first, third and sixth negotiating sessions in New York and the second, fourth and fifth sessions in Vienna, and shall be guided by the rules of procedure of the General Assembly.
In line with decision 76/552 of the General Assembly, the Ad Hoc Committee held a one-day meeting on organizational matters on 24 February 2022, and its first session from 28 February to 11 March 2022.
The Ad Hoc Committee approved the roadmap and mode of work for the Committee at its first session, held from 28 February to 11 March 2022.
A Frequently Asked Questions document with information on a new United Nations convention on cybercrime is available here.