유럽평의회 사이버범죄조약의 가입・비준을 위한 국내 이행법률의 마련과 준비 비교

Abstract

Although ICT policy-makers are persistently making efforts to eradicate illegal and harmful information on the cyber environment, there exist various limitations in investigations and law enforcement due to restrictions in human resources and legal and technical aspects. Investigating cyber crimes which cross an international border is especially troublesome. That is because cyber criminals who are aware that criminal justice institutes, in enforcing the laws, cannot cross the online international borders as readily as themselves due to restrictions in national sovereignty and jurisdiction laws are increasingly taking advantage of this fact to commit illegal acts in cyber spaces where borders do not exist or are cut across. This phenomenon is a kind of issue that would have been unimaginable in terms of the conventional criminal justice laws, and is a reason why cooperation and mutual assistance at the international level have become urgently necessary in criminal justice responses toward cyber crimes. For this reason, the significance of the Council of Europe's Convention on Cyber Crime, which came into effect on July 1st, 2004, is increasing day by day. Taking comprehensive measures toward cyber crimes became possible through international cooperations at least within the EU. However, it is not enough to stay at this level. Occurrences of cyber crimes are not limited to within the European regions. The experts who were involved in the enactment of the Convention already knew this fact, and thus did not restrict the eligibility for registration to the countries that are EU members. Also, although a regional convention, it has content which does not suffer by comparison with other global and international conventions for the purpose of international use. That is because there needs to be no difference in criminal justice reponses to a certain characteristic of cyber crime due to the occurrence regions of the crimes. If the Council of Europe's Convention on Cyber Crime is expanded to become an international convention and does not stay in its current form, its effectiveness (in its role as criminal justice law toward crimes) will increase accordingly. This is why registering in this Convention is essential. With the above awareness, "Domestic implementation legislation and preparations for Korea's registration in the Council of Europe's Convention on Cyber Crime and its ratification" announced in [The 15th Korea-China International Criminal Law Conference:　Prevention and penalties for cyber crimes in Korea and China] was modified to include an overview of the main content of the Convention, an analysis of the duties of the contracting parties set on the Convention including legislative actions, and a comparison with the current states of related legislations in Korea, in an attempt to contribute a part to the preparation for Korea's registration in the Convention and its ratification.