ABSTRACT
A group of globalisation critics are suing a commercial host provider of the Internet. The case ties together into a single focal point a range of fundamental problems that the digitalisation of communication is throwing up anew. It is not just technical legal questions of compulsory contracting for private providers, the right of access to internet institutions, the validity and implementation of national norms in the transnational internet, or the third party effect of fundamental rights in cyberspace that are up for debate. Rather, we are faced with the more fundamental question of a universal political right of access to digital communication. Even though the debate is only at its very beginnings in the international sphere, it indicates, in view of the massive human rights infringements by non-state actors, the necessity of an extension of constitutionalism beyond purely intergovernmental relations. The theory of societal constitutionalism developed by the American sociologist David Sciulli supplies initial starting points.
