📚Forthcoming: 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📕Le système juridique de l’adressage de l’Internet. Une structure multi-acteurs, gage de durabilité (The Legal System of Internet Addressing. A Multi-Stakeholder Structure, the Pledge of its Sustainability)

► Full reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, Le système juridique de l’adressage de l’Internet. Une structure multi-acteurs, gage de durabilité (The Legal System of Internet Addressing. A Multi-Stakeholder Structure, the Pledge of its Sustainability), Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Lefebvre-Dalloz, “Régulations & Compliance” series, forthcoming.

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📘 This book is also published in English, in the “Compliance & Regulation” series: The Legal System of Internet Addressing. A Multi-Stakeholder Structure, the Pledge of its Sustainability, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Lefebvre-Bruylant, forthcoming.

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📚See all the books of the series.

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► General presentation of the book: The Internet is a space based on a technical system consisting of IP addresses, all of which can reach one another. This simple technical principle is essential because it is the foundation on which the digital space rests, in that it allows anyone to enter it, move within it and reach others. It is this principle of the open Internet that made possible the construction of the digital space in which we live. This technical system of IP addresses was made easily manageable by domain names. This manageability of IP addresses made the open character of the Internet effective and enabled the expansion of a space that was global from the outset, forming the basis of the digital space.

These technical elements were directly translated into the addressing system through domain names, which was built by the Law. The resulting legal system of addressing reflects this technical foundation, and no one can either deny or undo this link: indeed, the Law enables the domain name infrastructure to function effectively on a global scale and in an open manner, where everyone can reach the other. Technical architecture and legal architecture are thus inseparable. This freedom for everyone to create and circulate in the digital space is made possible by technology and guaranteed by the legal organisation of the domain name architecture.

This study is structured in two parts. Its first part aims to describe the legal framework of the global domain name system. Its second part examines how to improve this system: it first examines the technical effects produced by scenarios involving changes to the legal framework of addressing, namely a high risk of capture and/or fragmentation of the domain name system by regional zone. It then aims to demonstrate that if the legal organisation of the global domain name system were significantly altered, notably through the establishment of legal addressing zones that are autonomous from one another, the technical imperative of globality remaining paramount, interconnection between the different zones would be necessary and would then be ensured by a public or private actor who could thus effectively seize control of the technical system via these proposed new legal structures of the system, thereby taking over the whole.

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PROVISIONAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

Putting into Perspective

 

PART ONE

HOW THE GLOBAL LEGAL SYSTEM OF NAMING IS BUILT

 

CHAPTER I: ICANN: A LEGAL STRUCTURE OF CLASSIC HARD-LAW FORM, REQUIRED BY THE TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE ADDRESSING SYSTEM, TRANSPOSED THROUGH STATUTES THAT SEPARATE THE POWER TO PROPOSE FROM THE POWER TO ADOPT IN ORDER TO ESTABLISH A “MULTI-STAKEHOLDER” SYSTEM WHOSE PURPOSE AND EFFECT ARE TO PREVENT CAPTURE

CHAPTER II: THE EXERCISE BY STATES OF THEIR PREROGATIVES THROUGH NATIONAL PUBLIC LAWS: ARTICULATION BETWEEN THE TWO GEOGRAPHICAL SPACES OF HARD LAW

CHAPTER III: INTERNATIONAL SPACES OF HARD AND SOFT LAW: UN, WIPO, ITU, WSIS

CHAPTER IV: MIRRORING THE TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE ADDRESSING SYSTEM, THE INTERMESHED GLOBAL LEGAL STRUCTURE, ARTICULATING THE SPACE OF HARD LAW AND THE SPACE OF SOFT LAW

CHAPTER V: INTERNALISATION WITHIN CRUCIAL OPERATORS THROUGH COMPLIANCE TECHNIQUES LINKED TO THE OBLIGATION OF SUSTAINABILITY

 

PART TWO

HOW TO IMPROVE THE GLOBAL LEGAL SYSTEM OF NAMING

 

CHAPTER I: ASSESSMENT OF THE RADICAL TECHNICAL TRANSFORMATIONS THAT PROPOSALS TO CHANGE THE LEGAL SYSTEM OF ADDRESSING COULD BRING ABOUT

Section 1 ♦️ Assessment of the technical consequences of the legal proposal to transfer the current complex and specific system into an ordinary mechanism of Public International Law

Section 2 ♦️ Assessment of the technical consequences of the indirect proposal to establish separate blocks of systems by zone

CHAPTER II: MAINTAINING THE LEGAL SYSTEM OF ADDRESSING, GLOBAL, PROTECTED FROM CAPTURE AND ABLE TO ENSURE TECHNICAL SUSTAINABILITY? BY FOSTERING AN INCREMENTAL PROCEDURAL IMPROVEMENT TOWARDS BETTER UNDERSTANDING AND THUS BETTER ACCOUNTABILITY

Section 1 ♦️ A grievance, factual but central: the legal system of domain names is hard to understand. Causes and consequences

Section 2 ♦️ Making the legal system of domain names more easily understandable to the parties concerned Ex Ante

Section 3 ♦️ Explaining clearly, starting from the purposes, the share of technical sustainability and the share of societal sustainability, the former firmly preserved, the latter handled as a debated project

Section 4 ♦️ Enhancing soft-law instruments for their discursive, that is explanatory, scope regarding the domain name system within the global governance of the Internet

Section 5 ♦️ Making the legal system of domain names understandable to the parties concerned Ex Post: thereby increasing the value of accountability

 

Selected Bibliographical Sources

Index

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