Conflict of Laws and the Internet

This chapter documents the extreme stresses that cyberspace applies to state law by examining how private international law, or conflict of laws, has responded to the online global world. This highlights both the penetration of globalisation into the ‘private’ sphere and the strongly ‘public’ or collective political nature of much of the ‘private’ ordering through national law. The chapter shows that the nation state is asserting itself against the very phenomenon – globalization (through cyberspace) – that threatens its existence and does not shy away from accepting the fragmentation of this global cyberspace along traditional political boundaries as collateral damage to its own survival. Yet, the frequent appeal to international human rights normativity in recent conflicts jurisprudence suggests an awareness of the unsuitability and illegitimacy of nation state law for the global online world.