International Cooperation to Fight Transnational Cybercrime

The ever growing use of computers and information communication technologies in the world of "e-everything" has opened up a range of new activities for crime to take place through electronic means on a global scale, irrespective of national and transnational borders. The effective combating, investigation and prosecution of such crimes require international cooperation between countries, law enforcement agencies and institutions backed by laws, international relations, conventions, directives and recommendations culminating in a set of international guidelines to fight cybercrime. There are many challenges to international cooperation and establishing international guidelines to fight global cybercrime across borders. There is a prerequisite for the harmonization of countries' criminal laws, the sanction of complex jurisdictional issues and the development of new cooperation procedures to challenge cybercrime, its extent and location. It is necessary to identify the perpetrators across borders anywhere in the world, and to investigate and to secure electronic evidence of their crimes so that they may be brought to justice in any compliant jurisdiction with fairness and compliance with human rights standards. This is a daunting task in itself. This paper presents and discusses approaches to overcoming these and other difficulties faced by law enforcement agencies at an international level as well as indicates what possible future work might be required to overcome such difficulties.