This article considers the international laws applicable to irresponsible state behaviour in cyberspace through the lens of the problem of election hacking. The rule of sovereignty has taken centre stage in these discussions and is said to be preferred to the non-intervention rule because it evades the problem of coercion. Proponents of the cyber rule of sovereignty contend that there is such a rule; opponents reject the existence of the rule as a matter of existing law. The objective here is to explore the methodologies involved in the identification of the cyber rule of sovereignty under customary international law. The work first frames the debate in the language of regulative and constitutive rules, allowing us to show that a regulative rule of sovereignty can, logically, and necessarily, be deduced from the constitutive rule of sovereignty. The content of the regulative rule can also be deduced from the constitutive rule of sovereignty, but it has a more limited scope than claimed by the proponents of the rule, notably the Tallinn Manual 2.0. The rule of sovereignty prohibits state cyber operations carried out on the territory of the target state and remote cyber operations which involve the exercise of sovereign authority on that territory, e.g., police evidence-gathering operations. The rule of sovereignty does not, however, prohibit other remote, ex situ state cyber operations, even those targeting ICTs used for governmental functions, including the conduct of elections. The rule of sovereignty is not, then, the solution to the problem of election hacking.

本文通过选举黑客问题来思考适用于网络空间中不负责任的国家行为的国际法。主权规则在这些讨论中占据了中心地位，据说比不干预规则更受青睐，因为它回避了强制问题。网络主权规则的支持者认为，存在这样的规则；反对者拒绝将这一规则视为现有法律的存在。这里的目的是探索在习惯国际法下识别网络主权规则所涉及的方法。该著作首先用规范性规则和构成性规则的语言来构建辩论，使我们能够证明主权的规范性规则可以从逻辑上且必然地从主权的构成性规则中推导出来。规范性规则的内容也可以从主权的构成性规则中推导出来，但其范围比该规则的支持者（特别是《塔林手册2.0》）所声称的范围更为有限。主权规则禁止在目标国领土上进行国家网络行动，以及涉及在该领土上行使主权权力的远程网络行动，例如警察取证行动。然而，主权统治并不禁止其他遥远的、主权规则禁止在目标国领土上进行国家网络行动，以及涉及在该领土上行使主权权力的远程网络行动，例如警察取证行动。然而，主权统治并不禁止其他遥远的、主权规则禁止在目标国领土上进行国家网络行动，以及涉及在该领土上行使主权权力的远程网络行动，例如警察取证行动。然而，主权统治并不禁止其他遥远的、异地国家网络行动，甚至是针对用于政府职能（包括举行选举）的信息通信技术的行动。因此，主权统治并不能解决选举黑客问题。