Jusletter IT

ICANN has a hybrid identity as a private corporation with global quasi-regulatory powers. This structure can hardly be made compliant with general international legal principles such as sovereignty or democratic participation. Since WSIS 2005, the literature on Internet governance sheding light on issues such as transparency and accountability of ICANN has exponentially increased and seems to already fill libraries. However, the approach of trying to mirror ICANN’s legal status against the constitutionalism theories is less frequently chosen.
Therefore, it is worthwhile to extend the frontiers of constitutional law into the setting of Internet governance by looking into the traditional questions of constitutional government. In this context, the following issues should be addressed:
• Are constitutional principles relevant for the legal status of ICANN?
• How must sovereignty be rephrased in the age of Internet?
• Should ICANN by bound by a charter encompassing human rights in the form of a Magna Charta?
• What does the principle of separation of power mean for the decision-making processes with ICANN?
• How should a legal remedies‘ system be implemented being able to protect fundamental rights of individuals (such as by introducing a special „court“ or a board of review)?
The contribution shows that the principles of constitutional law offer promising means for achieving fair and equitable governance standards in the Internet age.