Approval of the Final Draft of the Cyber-Crime Convention

IRIS 2001-7:1/1

Irene Gentile

European Audiovisual Observatory

On 22 June 2001, the Council of Europe Committee on Crime Problems (CDPC), an intergovernmental expert body reporting to the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers, approved the final draft of the cyber-crime Convention. The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly had given its opinion on the draft in April this year (see IRIS 2001-5: 3).

The Convention, which should be examined and probably adopted by the Committee of Ministers in September this year, will be the first international treaty on computer and computer-related crimes dealing with illegal access and interception, infringements of copyrights, computer-related frauds, child pornography and other types of similar misuses.

The CDPC also decided to complement the Convention by an additional protocol dealing with the dissemination of racist and xenophobic speech through computer networks.

The Convention will enter into force when five states, including at least three Council of Europe member states, have ratified it.