The 2007 (probably) Russian cyber-attack on Estonia, and even more so the NSA mass surveillance and spy activities revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013 had a great impact on internet politics worldwide, in the EU and in Germany. The first event triggered NATO to look closer on cyber war, with the result that the Tallinn Manual was elaborated and published establishing a number of definitions and rules regarding the application of international law, including humanitarian law, on cyber war. A second edition of the Manual, extending it to attacks in peace was published in 2017. As a consequence of the Snowden revelations, Brazil and Germany initiated a process at the UN for establishing the protection of human rights and, in particular, privacy worldwide through clearer provisions under international law (Pillay Report). And in its "Digital Agenda" and in the Coalition Agreement for the new government 2013, with a special focus on the digitisation of the society, particular emphasis was given to the "Völkerrecht des Netzes" (the international law of the internet). What is this law, what are the structural shifts cognisable in the international law of the internet, and how can new legal developments at the global level best be conceptualised to respond to the challenges of digitisation? The present contribution uses the Tallinn Manual, the Pillay Report and the discussion on an international law of the internet as examples and starting points for elaborating some principles of a constitution of the internet, based upon experience from multi-stakeholder settings tested since the Rio Process and developed within the diverse fora of internet governance.
