Just a few months ago in April 2015 the global Conference on Cyberspace didn’t give much optimism to those expecting a unison of voices in favour of an international agreement on norms of state behaviour in cyberspace. Despite the palpable understanding that the international community does need to grope for a common denominator for global peace and security, mentions of a legal binding treaty was mostly frowned upon. The discussions on the nuances of the international law application in cyber revealed a wide array of differences of interpretations. The fruit was not ripe, but the plant has been generously watered since then.

Implementation of the signed agreement might present a challenge for its parties, and particularly Russia, in certain important aspects. On a number of issues, Moscow seems to be more interested than its Eastern partner is. This could also be true for the paragraph on internationalization and democratization of the Internet governance mechanism, in which the official Russian approach has been embedded. Russia’s goal is to achieve transition of control over critical technical business processes (including the IANA and VeriSign functions related to management of the DNS Root Zone) under the jurisdiction of international bodies such as International Telecommunication Union.