The Internet and Public International Law

It is perhaps commonplace to observe that recent developments in information technology are revolutionizing most aspects of our lives. Anything that affects our lives so profoundly will, of necessity, have a significant effect on the law. We can expect that the information revolution will have a comparably significant impact on the international system of binding obligations often calledpublic international law. Just what that will be is of course extremely difficult to predict. Compounding that difficulty is the lack of consensus on just what actually amounts to the public international legal system. Scholars and lawyers still debate fundamental questions regarding the sources of public international law, the ways in which public international law binds, and indeed whether it in fact binds.

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