Law Commons^™

Governing By Negotiation: The Internet Naming System, Tamar Frankel

Faculty Scholarship

This Article is about the governance of the Internet naming system. The subject is fascinating, not simply because the naming system is an important system affecting the Internet, although it is; and not because the Internet is important, although it is. The subject is fascinating because it offers a rare opportunity to examine and learn from the evolution of an incoherent governance structure. The naming system is special in that it is the product of a new technology; it reflects the changes and pressures brought by the new technology, and involves the interests of government and private entities, domestic and …

Fire, Metaphor, And Constitutional Myth-Making, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

From the standpoint of traditional legal thought, metaphor is at best a dash of poetry adorning lawyerly analysis, and at worst an unjustifiable distraction from what is actually at stake in a legal contest. By contrast, in the eyes of those who view law as a close relative of ordinary language, metaphor is a basic building block of human understanding. This article accepts that metaphor helps us to comprehend a court's decision. At the same time, it argues that metaphor plays a special role in the realm of constitutional discourse. Metaphor in constitutional law not only reinforces doctrinal categories, but …

The International Privacy Regime, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

Privacy has joined one of many areas of law understandable only by reference to the results of overlapping and conflicting national agendas. What has emerged as the de facto international regime is complex. Yet based on a few simplifying principles, we can nonetheless do much to understand it and predict its operation.

First, the idea that self-regulation by the internet community will be the driving force in privacy protection must be laid to rest. The experience of the last decade shows that nation-states, powerful nation-states in particular, drive the system of international privacy. The final mix of privacy protection that …