The Internet remains the odd child of international law. While forever more universal law venues such as conferences, edited volumes or research projects consider “the Internet” a peculiar, interesting aspect of its well-recognized disciplines, international scholarship fails to address the global network as a whole, stalling the application of the fully developed and well-suited international law apparatus to the global community's biggest contemporary challenge. “Internet governance” is still perceived by legal scholars as construed to international relations and, at best, a potential ground for soft law in a distant future. That is not the case: Internet governance, with all its challenges, has been shaping international law for almost two decades. The latest unveilings of the ways in which the Internet impacts global policies and laws caught the public eye with the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal and, previously, with the 2013 Snowden revelations, yet as surprising as they might have been to the average user, they are direct results of network's architecture and its governance model. This paper looks at the evolving concept of “Internet's public core” as an opportunity to bridge this dogmatic gap. We identify the scope and meaning of “Internet's core” and assess its legitimacy within existing international normative frameworks. We argue that the technical components crucial to the flawless operation of the global network, such as the Domain Name System and Internet's backbone networks, can be effectively protected with international law.

互联网仍然是国际法的怪胎。尽管会议，编辑量或研究项目之类的越来越普遍的法律场所都将“互联网”视为其公认学科的独特而有趣的方面，但国际奖学金未能解决整个全球网络的问题，从而阻碍了整个互联网的应用。针对国际社会最大的当代挑战，发展并建立了适合自己的国际法机构。法律学者仍然认为“互联网治理”被理解为国际关系，充其量也充其量是在不久的将来实施软法的潜在依据。事实并非如此：互联网治理面临所有挑战，近二十年来一直在塑造国际法。互联网对全球政策和法律产生影响的最新方式引起了2018年Cambridge Analytica丑闻以及2013年Snowden丑闻的关注，但对于普通用户而言却是令人惊讶的网络体系结构及其治理模型的直接结果。本文将不断发展的“互联网公共核心”概念视为弥合这种教条式差距的机会。我们确定“互联网核心”的范围和含义，并在现有国际规范框架内评估其合法性。我们认为，域名系统和Internet的骨干网等对全球网络的完美运行至关重要的技术组件可以通过国际法得到有效保护。