خلاصة:
Espionage has been exercised throughout world history. By the new advancements in technology and emergence of the phenomenon of terrorism and taking necessary measures against it, however, it has gained its particular complexities and leading to many international disputes. International law distinguishes between peacetime and wartime espionage. In peacetime, it applies principle of separation of national and international jurisdictions and consequently that of State equality. Therefore, any intervention including through espionage entailing aggression against State national jurisdiction is considered as unlawful. The principle of equality of States implies non-intervention by States in each other’s affairs. Nevertheless, in new international legal order there exist certain instances of justified interventions including through espionage such as interventions permitted by the UN Security Council when collective peace and security of the world demands; intervention for self-defence; intervention by invitation; and intervention for humanitarian and human rights purposes. In war time, under certain circumstances, espionage is recognized as a legitimate ruse of war. There is an urgent need to have a world document for codification of provisions governing espionage and its new forms including cyber espionage and espionage violating the individual’s privacy. Espionage has become a global issue and therefore a new treaty can identify the instances of legitimate and illegitimate espionage.
ملخص الجهاز:
com Received: 2017-09-21 - Accepted: 2020-02-17 Introduction The issue of espionage 1 by one country against another has always been common throughout the history of international relations 2, and the guarantee of preventing it is often an apology from the offending country, the expulsion of the spy from the victim country, his arrest and exchange, and diplomatic settlement of the case (Article 9 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and Article 301 of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea regarding spy ships).
In international law, this phenomenon has been considered for a long time, but its various dimensions remain very ambiguous, so that in recent years, the case of Julian Assange 3 and his disclosures at the WikiLeaks Institute, as well as Edward Snowden, 4 a former contractor of the US Central Intelligence Agency and leaking classified information from US intelligence agencies, and the illegal wiretapping of the “US National Security Agency” (NSA) and 5 the extensive use of this country of unmanned aerial vehicles known as drones 6, have once again turned the issue of espionage and its place in international law into a serious debate.
html Based on the explanation of the doctrine of non-interference and the examples regarding legal interventions, it can be concluded that it seems that espionage is legal when it takes place within the framework of “reciprocal action”1 or in line with the implementation of “peremptory norms” of international law, such as the right to self-determination of a country’s people, and also, considering the phenomenon of globalization, if espionage is “necessary” for maintaining international peace and security and combating terrorism, or if information gathering is done with the consent of the target government.
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