After 27 years of intense diplomacy, the UN recently launched Global Mechanism (GM) for Cyberspace. Built on the July 11 Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) consensus, it's a new, permanent international forum to advance responsible state behaviour in cyberspace, focusing on norms, international law, capacity building and confidence-building measures.

The path to GM has been anything but smooth. The Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) process, which dominated cyber diplomacy from 2004 to 2017, achieved significant milestones. However, GGE processes, with their restricted memberships, had limited mandates. The more inclusive OEWG process, initiated in 2018, proved transformational. OEWG allowed all 193 UN member-states to participate and enabled a wide- ranging consensus, including GM.

What made consensus possible was a shared recognition that cyberthreats transcend traditional boundaries, as well as geopolitical and ideological differences. Cybercriminals operate with impunity across borders without regard for political systems. These shared vulnerabilities created incentives for cooperation even among strategic competitors.