FRAGMENTS OF FRAGMENTS. THE DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM REGULATION: GLOBAL LAW OR INFORMALIZATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ORDER?

The paper studies some international law aspects underpinning the project of the new Domain Name System governance, in order to try and bridge the worlds of IT law and international law. It also deals with the issue of the fragmentation of both international and domestic legal orders with an international lawyer’s perspective, and faces the approach adopted on the same issue by the ‘global/transnational’ law doctrine. It uses the Internet Domain Names System (DNS) governance in the perspective of the international legal order as a case-study, framing it in the context of various informal cross-border cooperation between public authorities., It also examines the ICANN as an organization, trying to understand if it could be read as an international organization and the gradual overcoming of the ‘political question doctrine’ in the US.