he following joint statement was endorsed by the United States of America, Australia, Canada, the European Union, 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 on the occasion of the 79th annual United National General Assembly.
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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 undersea 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 with a view to improving resilience of the global cables network.
