Insights

On the occasion of the 79th annual United National General Assembly in New York, the United States and its Allies issued the New York Joint Statement on the Security and Resilience of Undersea Cables in a Globally Digitalized World (the New York Joint Statement) on September 26, 2024.

The New York Joint Statement was proposed by the United States, endorsed the European Union and 15 UN member states, including Australia, Canada, the Federated States of Micronesia, Finland, France, Japan, the Marshall Islands, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Tonga, Tuvalu, and the United Kingdom, without impressing the majority of the 193 UN member states.

Norway endorsed the New York Joint Statement on November 19, 2024, one day after news broke about damage to two underwater communication cables in the Baltic Sea.

The New York Joint Statement

Communications networks underpin almost every aspect of our lives. Yet the rapid development of communication technologies and massive scale of these networks increases our dependency on these systems and introduces vulnerabilities.

Undersea cables, together with other elements of the information and communications technology ecosystem, continue to transform the way we communicate and the way we live. The unparalleled capacity, low latency, and reliability of undersea cables make them ideal for transmitting vast volumes of data and information. The demand for undersea cables and supporting infrastructure has surged as seamless connectivity has become indispensable to commerce and digital growth across every sector of the global economy. The expansion of undersea cable networks is the foundation of a more interconnected and interdependent global community, and states should adopt policies to enable efficient, robust, redundant, resilient, and secure infrastructure for network data and information flows.

This reliance on undersea cables can, however, present major risks related to important public interests and have national and economic security implications.  Protecting the security, resilience, and integrity of undersea cables is critical to global communications, economic growth, and development. Managing security risks, including from high-risk suppliers of undersea cable equipment and promoting best security practices for laying and maintaining these cables for secure and resilient global infrastructure is essential for the networks upon which the global economy relies.

In this regard, undersea cable infrastructure includes not only the communication cables themselves but also any elements related to their construction, operation, surveillance, maintenance and repair, such as landing stations, software, and the terrestrial parts of the submarine cable connecting to them, repair centers, as well as the fleet of deployment, maintenance and repair vessels.

The endorsers aspire to the following principles for a shared global approach to ensure the security, reliability, interoperability, sustainability, and resiliency for the deployment, repair and maintenance of undersea cable infrastructure:

• Design undersea cable infrastructure and services with resilience, redundancy, and security in mind.  Build and maintain this infrastructure incorporating cybersecurity best practices that safely facilitate international communication.
• Advance cooperation between endorsers to promote the selection of secure and verifiable subsea cable providers for new cable projects, in particular for intercontinental ICT cable projects, reduce latency and enhance route diversity, protect cables and anticipate risks of intentional or unintentional damage as well as risks of communications and data being compromised.
• Seek closer government and industry coordination for supporting responsible undersea cable deployment, maintenance, and repair according to established international industry norms. 
• Emphasize the importance of spatial and route planning to promote coordinated use of seabeds, protect cables from natural or man-made hazards, ease chokepoints, and reduce risk of inadvertent disruption while expanding global connectivity.   Encourage where applicable alternative submarine cable routes in view to improve resilience of the global cables network.
• Share with interested third parties and governments best practices for permitting and regulation to support international cable systems and supporting services and capabilities.
• Encourage undersea cable network service providers and operations and maintenance providers to have transparent ownership, partnerships, and corporate governance structures.
• Consider security risk assessments regularly across the cable lifecycle, taking into account technical and non-technical risk factors such as undue influence by a third country on suppliers and service providers, while developing and implementing risk mitigation measures.
• Promote data risk mitigation frameworks and data security measures to protect cable networks from unauthorized access to data in transit or storage for dual purposes.
• Comply with applicable international law, as reflected in UNCLOS, and domestic law and consider relevant policies at regional or national level, as well as applicable industry best practices, notably with regard to risk assessment and management.

By endorsing these principles, we hope other nations will follow these principles within their respective systems of government and thereby create collaborative action to better preserve the reliability, integrity, security, and availability of infrastructure that supports the global community.

Responses

The EU Commission welcomed the Joint Statement on the security and resilience of undersea cables at UN General Assembly in New York.

The EU said:

Submarine cables are crucial for international connectivity, data traffic and communications. The Joint Statement, proposed by the United States, lays out principles to ensure undersea cable infrastructure is secure, reliable, sustainable and resilient. These principles include recommendations to select low-risk subsea cable providers, follow cybersecurity best practices, enhance route diversity and protect cable networks from unauthorised access to data in transit.

The Joint Statement is in line with the Commission recommendation on the security and resilience of submarine cable infrastructures, which presents a set of actions at national and EU level aimed at improving submarine cable security and resilience, through better coordination across the EU, both in terms of governance and funding.

Australia was pleased to join the US and a range of international partners in endorsing the Joint Statement on 25 September 2024 in New York. In July 2024, the Australia government launched a new Cable Connectivity and Resilience Centre within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to help ensure undersea cable networks in the Indo-Pacific are resilient and all countries can benefit from reliable connectivity and the growth of the digital, being an important Australian contribution to the Quad Partnership for Cable Connectivity and Resilience, which is an important demonstration of the Quad's delivery in the region, responding to the Indo-Pacific's most pressing challenges. 

China's foreign affairs spokesperson Lin Jian accused the US of "turning undersea cables into a political and security issue” and denying other countries "the right to develop their undersea cable industry and independently choose undersea cable suppliers." Lin Jian said:

International undersea cables are the most important type of information carrier in international communications of our time and the underpinning infrastructure for international digital economy and cross-border trade. Regrettably, however, the US has in recent years blatantly contravened international rules and business operation models, built a small yard with high fences targeted at China in the field of undersea cables, and kept abusing state power to go after and suppress Chinese companies, products and technologies. The fact that the US advocates the signing of such an exclusive joint statement on undersea cables during the UNGA says everything about its ill intention.

Undersea cables are typical international infrastructure for civilian uses, which bear on global cyber connectivity and the wellbeing of people around the world. China firmly opposes the US turning undersea cables into a political and security issue, which severely disrupts international market rules, threatens global digital connectivity and cybersecurity, and denies other countries, especially developing countries, the right to develop their undersea cable industry and independently choose undersea cable suppliers. China will, as always, firmly defend the lawful and legitimate interests of Chinese companies, support the international community in conducting undersea cable cooperation under the principles of fairness, justice, equality and inclusiveness, and firmly oppose the US’s unilateral and hegemonic moves.

Other Related Statements & Act

In addition to the New York Joint Statement on the Security and Resilience of Undersea Cables in a Globally Digitalized World, the Quad – the diplomatic alliance consisting of the US, India, Japan and Australia – issued a joint statement on September 21, 2024, demonstrating the achievements for the fourth in-person Quad Leaders Summit, hosted by President Biden in Wilmington, Delaware. The Quad Leaders committed to improving the region’s connectivity through the development of quality, resilient infrastructure, reaffirmed their support for the Pacific Quality Infrastructure Principlesand, and aimed to ensure every Pacific island state is connected by a subsea cable by the end of 2025. The Quad governments have committed more than $140 million to undersea cable builds in the Pacific over the past 16 months. 

Earlier in March 2024,  the G7 issued a Joint Statement on Cable Connectivity for Secure and Resilient Digital Communications Networks as part of its Ministerial Declaration for the G7 Industry, Tech & Digital Ministrial Meeting, held in Verona and Trento, Italy on on 14-15 March, 2024.

Notably, the US House of Congress passed the Undersea Cable Control Act in March 2023. The bill seeks to prevent foreign adversaries from acquiring goods and technologies capable of supporting the construction, maintenance, or operation of undersea cable projects. For the purposes of this bill, a foreign adversary is China or any foreign government or nongovernment person (entity or individual) engaged in certain conduct that significantly and adversely affects U.S. security. Over a year and a half, it is still pending for the Senate to pass the Undersea Cable Control Act.

Updates

The Norwegian government announced on November 19, 2024 its endorsement of the Joint Statement on the Security and Resilience of Undersea Cables in a Globally Digitalized World, one day after news broke about damage to two underwater communication cables in the Baltic Sea.