The Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace–a global cyber pact introduced last month at the Paris Peace Forum by French President Emmanuel Macron–now has more than 420 signatories, including countries, companies, and non-profit organizations and advocacy groups. In a Dec. 2 blog post, Microsoft, a signatory of the pact, announced that Ghana will sign the pact. Microsoft also said that Rwanda and Kenya are expected to sign on as well. According to the text of the pact released last month, it is a “high-level declaration on developing common principles for securing cyberspace.” Signatories to the pact commit themselves to “increase prevention against and resilience to malicious online activity; protect the accessibility and integrity of the Internet; cooperate in order to prevent interference in electoral processes; work together to combat intellectual property violations via the Internet; prevent the proliferation of malicious online programmes and techniques; improve the security of digital products and services as well as everybody’s ‘cyber hygiene;’ clamp down on online mercenary activities and offensive action by non-state actors; work together to strengthen the relevant international standards.” The United States, Iran, North Korea, and Israel have not signed the pact.
