I see EFF (and friends) wrote about this nasty piece of work again (though, it's not entirely clear to me that these recommendations are sufficient[1]).
Anyway, here's my thoughts:
It has so many problems, it's honestly hard for me to know where to even begin. One part encourages the rapid takedown of content [2 Article 53.3.h], and that is not necessarily a good thing, as it could drive companies to over-censor (and we have seen them do this).
We've also seen attempts to chase after pet issues (and even hypotheticals)[3], rather than actual serious crimes, and these would overwhelmingly affect legitimate activities.
Article 53 is, (probably) deliberately, open-ended, and seems to encourage an endless parade of possible totalitarianism.
It still doesn't appear to require that a crime is a crime in both countries (Article 22.2.b) in all cases?
Article 20 encourages longer statutes of limitations without any particular regard to the severity of the crime. It would also appear to create justifications for even greater surveillance than that even asked for here, by encouraging states to chase minor crimes from a long time ago.
The term "serious crime" is problematic in that a state can designate what might otherwise be an undeserving crime to have a certain "sentence", then to in practice, give someone a much lighter sentence as a consequence of judicial discretion, or as some other artefact of their judicial process. Alternatively, they might give someone a straight-up disproportionate punishment, particularly if they have little regard for human rights. They can then use this as "evidence" that they are pursuing a "serious crime" which might otherwise be quite minor. It is also not unusual for "crimes" like "insulting the king" to already carry pretty hefty sentences in a few countries, does that suddenly mean that is a "serious crime"?
Article 6 stipulates that a state *can* require intent for "unlawful access", however, it does *require* it, nor does it *recommend* it (they don't appear to have trouble making "recommendations" elsewhere in this document). That means this vehicle could still be misused in that manner. This is a common issue you might find elsewhere in this document.
As mentioned before, and repeated here below, "human rights are optional clauses" do not fundamentally make a blatant human rights violation any less of one, simply because a state which cares about human rights might be able to make use of it to avoid violating someone's human rights. It also wouldn't be particularly difficult to say "you cannot use this treaty as a vehicle for this"... They're not even trying.
Here's another example (which I touched on before):
Article 13 (the very same name as that revolting E.U. copyright legislation, though that was later renamed to Article 17, very different in nature though). It could be described as a "won't anyone please think of the children?"[4] section. Immediately, if we look at the language, it immediately looks extremely suspicious, and it is clear to anyone with a functional brain that they're not talking about protecting children, but seem intent on protecting someone from being offended.
"include written or audio content"
So, what comes to mind when you see words like this? Perhaps, a novel Time listed as one of it's best hundred novels? (this one keeps coming up, so I gotta mention it)[5][6] Maybe, something silly like a chatbot?[7] Stories about fictional cartoon characters?[7] Perhaps, a horror novel?
Also, even a "real people" definition would be fundamentally flawed. What if someone writes a story about what happened to themselves? If they talk about it, it would fall under the audio term. Is this a joke? It might also sweep up fantasies, including private fantasies, including ones communicated for the purposes of telehealth (so, there goes medical confidentiality). It cannot be stressed enough how bad of a definition that would be, and for no real legitimate purpose, it would seem[7].
If someone has committed a real crime, someone can simply pursue those. That said, it's really bad to punish innocent people in some War on Drugs type style[7][8][9]. It is incomprehensible how this sort of language even came to be, and I have many questions about the process which brought about this text, which brings complete and utter disgrace upon the entire United Nations, and it's organs. In less polite words, what the f-ck?
Also, while there is a clause saying that a State *could* only include cases "depicting", "describing", or "representing" (not is this wordplay game redundant, it is also iffy, suspicious, experimental, and likely abusable) "real children" for "imagery, etc", or to exclude written text / audio (it also appears to say nothing of deliberate intent, which could be problematic), it doesn't actually mandate that for use in this treaty, which is really, the entire point of having a safeguard to protect human rights. It also has other rather vague and highly abusable language, such as "describes", and this is an especially bad document to be experimenting with novel language in.
Repeating what a free speech group said (I think it was the EFF), there already appear to be other venues for dealing with these sorts of crimes, and messing around here only creates room for new possible human rights violations. Of course, this doesn't mean that I support vague / problematic definitions elsewhere either[10]. Still, it would seem that including this section in here could only create problems, all things considered.
1 https://www.eff.org/files/2024/01/22/joint.advocacy.statement-cybercrime.convention-jan.23.2024.pdf
2 https://www.unodc.org/documents/Cybercrime/AdHocCommittee/Concluding_session/Documents/A_AC.291_22_Rev.1_E.pdf
3 https://qoto.org/@olives/111497528228022091
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time%27s_List_of_the_100_Best_Novels
6 https://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/slide/lolita-1955-by-vladimir-nabokov/
7 https://qoto.org/@olives/111191543236620885
8 https://qoto.org/@olives/111448111216663879
9 https://qoto.org/@olives/111516011246609826
10 https://qoto.org/@olives/111763532531169050
6 I don't think the original version of that book (50s) even had a cover.