Abstract
One of the most curious instances of international administrative governance is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). On the one hand, ICANN is neither an international organization, nor even an entity under international law, but a non-profit corporation under Californian law. On the other hand, it administers access to the Internet and sets the standards around the world. The principal participants in setting the standards and organizing the Internet are private corporations. Although national governments are involved, they are formally reduced to an advisory role vis-à-vis the organization. The roles are generally reversed in international law, private persons function as consultants only and it is up to the governments as representatives of states to make binding decisions.1 Under the standard model of international law an international organization or an international authority may set rules only after having been empowered to this end by states. ICANN, however, has never been vested with such powers by any international treaty. Further, international actors are usually bound by the rules established by an international organization or authority only by accepting such an obligation through international treaties and agreements. The rules set by ICANN, however, are accepted and implemented without any such international legal instrument having been concluded. Nevertheless, ICANN establishes rules which are of greater importance than most acts of international organizations and they are more widely and more strictly accepted and respected than binding decisions of most international organizations. One could make the argument that ICANN decisions are more authoritative than those of the UN Security Council in the sense that ICANN decisions are less frequently violated. The reason why ICANN’s decisions enjoy such broad acceptance and are followed so strictly is practical in nature: ICANN’s rules are necessary for the operation of the Internet, without which the Internet would not run, and without the Internet today’s world would not run.
I would like to thank Matthias Goldmann for fruitful discussions and Lewis Enim and Eva Richter for their corrections of the text.
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Hartwig, M. (2010). ICANN – Governance by Technical Necessity. In: von Bogdandy, A., Wolfrum, R., von Bernstorff, J., Dann, P., Goldmann, M. (eds) The Exercise of Public Authority by International Institutions. Beiträge zum ausländischen öffentlichen Recht und Völkerrecht, vol 210. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04531-8_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04531-8_20
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