The Normative Order of the Internet in National Legal Orders

Abstract

Chapter 7 takes a close look at the norms of the normative order of the internet and studies how they are integrated into national legal orders and especially how non-traditional norms, such as standards and soft law—a legal “tertium” next to national and international law—are legitimated through national legal processes. The chapter shows that national legal orders have recognized international law and national law. Monism and dualism have emerged to explain how the two dominions relate to each other: the choices range from subordination to coordination with varying primacies. Together with global constitutionalists, the study goes beyond this debate. It will argue that this tertium of normativity has been recognized by national orders: normative instruments that are neither “national” law nor “international” law, but part of the normative order of the internet. This enrichment of the legal vocabulary has been called a “change in the composition of the medium of law” by Jürgen Habermas.