POLITICAL DISPUTES OF GOVERNMENTS ON INTERNET GOVERNANCE AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

The variety of issues posed by the Internet today cannot be easily neglected by jurists and politicians. These are problems that the international community has no other way but to find appropriate solutions to. The first and most important issue faced in relation to the Internet, is the problem of Internet Governance. The Internet is currently managed by the ICANN, an American company and the US is very much inclined to retain the existing situation. This paper is thus an attempt to first provide an analysis of Internet Governance by ICANN and later to reveal whether International Law places any international responsibility on the US Government for activities undertaken by ICANN? In other words, whether the US Government must be accountable for activities undertaken by ICANN in the area of Internet Governance? The question will be responded to by means of a thorough investigation of relevant international documents on managing the World Wide Web; these would include documents released by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).