A draft agreement on cooperation in combating cybercrime has been tabled to the agenda of the 28th session of the CIS Council of Heads of State that will take place in Dushanbe on September 28.
This agreement will replace the previous CIS agreement targeting cybercrime that was adopted on June 1, 2001.
Recall, the previous agreement on cooperation of CIS countries to combat crimes in the sphere of computer information was signed on June 1, 2001 in Minsk, Belarus. The issue of computer crimes needed to take urgent adequate legal measures by the lawmakers of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan to counteract to computer crimes. These measures included drafting new and unification of existing laws, enhancing older laws, adopting new legal acts and norms.
However, the previous CIS agreement on combating cybercrime has lost much of its relevance and does not allow competent bodies to carry out an exchange of information about new forms of cybercrime properly.
The new CIS agreement targeting cybercrime will be aimed at providing an efficient prevention, detection and solution of cybercrimes.
The new CIS draft agreement on cooperation in combating cybercrime provides for unification of a conceptual framework and development of directions and forms of mutual cooperation in combating cybercrime.
The new agreement also provides for extending the list of penal acts by including to it destruction, blockage or copying of information, violation of work of computer system though unauthorized access to a legally protected computer information, creation, use or spread of malicious software programs, etc.
The draft agreement on cooperation in combating cybercrime was approved by CIS foreign ministers at their session in Minsk in April this year.
Established on December 8, 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional organization. It now consists of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. Georgia pulled out of the organization in 2009.
Although Ukraine was one of the founding countries and ratified the Creation Agreement in December 1991, Ukraine chose not to ratify the CIS Charter as it disagrees with Russia being the only legal successor state to the Soviet Union. Thus it does not regard itself as a member of the CIS. In 1993, Ukraine became an "Associate Member" of CIS. On March 14, 2014, a bill was introduced to Ukraine's parliament to denounce their ratification of the 1991 Agreement Establishing the CIS, following the Russian military intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, but was never approved. Following the 2014 parliamentary election, a new bill to denounce the CIS agreement was introduced. In September 2015, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed Ukraine will continue taking part in CIS “on a selective basis.” Since that month, Ukraine has had no representatives in the CIS Executive Committee building. In April 2018, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko indicated that Ukraine would formally leave the CIS. On May 19, 2018, President Poroshenko signed a decree formally ending Ukraine's participation in CIS statutory bodies. However, as of 1 June the CIS secretariat had not received formal notice from Ukraine of its withdrawal from the CIS, a process which will take 1 year following notice being given. Ukraine has stated that intends review its participation in all CIS agreements, and only continue in those that are in its interests. In early August this year, Ukraine shut down its representative office at the CIS statutory bodies. CIS Executive Secretary Sergei Lebedev said on August 28 that the grouping's ties with Kyiv are now being maintained through the Ukrainian Embassy in Minsk.
