The 2024 edition of the North South Centre’s Intercultural Conference took place on 24 and 25 October, in Kotor, Montenegro, under the theme “Digital resilience: youth strategies against racist and xenophobic acts through computer systems”. The discussions focused on trends and threats emerging in this field, specific initiatives to combat these forms of discrimination with the engagement of young people, as well as the standards that support the fight against those crimes, particularly the First Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime (Budapest Convention), concerning the criminalisation of acts of a racist and xenophobic nature committed through computer systems, and other legal instruments from the African Union.

The conference benefited from contributions from experts and representatives from law enforcement, youth organisations, member states, and other stakeholders active in the combat against discrimination in the digital space, coming from 30 countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

The discussions and interactions resulted in a set of recommendations for youth initiatives to combat these issues, which will become the Kotor Declaration, the core result of the event.

The North-South Centre’s Intercultural Conference is part of its “North-South Dialogues”: a new initiative of the NSC’s medium-term strategy, launched in alignment with the outcomes of the Reykjavík Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe. The initiative is designed to bridge the growing divide between the North and the South and serve as a platform for discussion on the state of North-South relations and opportunities for mutual development, around key Council of Europe standards. By fostering dialogue, the “North-South Dialogues” seek to engage the widest possible number of countries from the South and the North to identify points of contention and build bridges around standards such as in the field of cybercrime.

This specialized conference was organised in partnership with the authorities of Montenegro and benefits from financial contributions by the governments of Malta, Portugal, and Spain within the framework of NSC projects. It also received support from CyberSouth+, a joint initiative of the European Union and the Council of Europe that aims at strengthening legislation and institutional capacities on cybercrime and electronic evidence in the region of the Southern Neighbourhood in line with human rights and rule of law requirements.