In a new Guidance Note adopted on 27 June 2023, the Cybercrime Convention Committee (T-CY) underlines that the procedural powers and the tools for international and cross-border cooperation of the Budapest Convention and its Second Protocol apply to evidence in electronic form of any criminal offence and not only to offences against and by means of computer systems or data.
This includes, for example, electronic evidence of rape and other sexual offences, of violence against women, of corruption or money laundering but also of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other international crimes such as in the context of the Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Ukraine is a Party to the Budapest Convention and recently signed the Second Protocol on enhanced cooperation and disclosure of electronic evidence.
This broad scope permits synergies between the Budapest Convention and other international agreements. For example, in order to collect electronic evidence of offences stipulated by the Istanbul Convention on violence against women and family violence, the corruption conventions of the Council of Europe and of the United Nations (UNCAC), the UN Convention on Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC), the Geneva Conventions on International Humanitarian Law or the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Parties to these treaties may apply the tools of the Budapest Convention and its Second Protocol to collect e-evidence.
