Achieving Depth: Subsea Cables as Critical Infrastructure
For a range of reasons, including the threat of State-backed sabotage, government attention to the security and resilience of subsea telecommunications cable systems has intensified in recent years.
While largely owned and operated by private companies, a growing number of States now qualify or designate the systems as critical, if not strategic infrastructure, the security and resilience of which are vital to economic and societal well-being, national security and much else.
The presentation, which draws from her recent UNIDIR report with the same title, will examine what a CI-designation means in policy and practice, the challenges that stem from such a designation, and how they might be addressed.
About the speaker
Camino Kavanagh
Senior Fellow
at
Dept. of War Studies, King’s College London
Dr. Camino Kavanagh is a visiting Senior Fellow with the Dept. of War Studies, King’s College London and a Fellow with United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).
Camino’s research and work centers on international politics, security, conflict, and technology, with a focus on critical infrastructure protection, including undersea systems.
She has served as advisor and rapporteur to UN negotiations on cyber/ICT and international security (UNGGE 2016–2017; UNOEWG 2019–2021) and has advised the UN Secretary-General’s office, UN peace and security bodies, regional organizations, and governments on cybersecurity, infrastructure resilience, conflict and diplomacy.
She also participates in track 1.5 and track 2 initiatives on international security and cyber and CUI governance.
Earlier in her career, Camino spent over a decade working in conflict and post-conflict contexts, including with UN peacekeeping and political missions.
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