I don’t have the sitzfleisch to weigh in on the question as to whether “Governments own a part of the domain name system as a matter of international law,” but ICANNWATCH, which believes this theory is “unprecedented and unsupported,” does. This is part of a larger article predicting that Paul Twomey, an Australian politician, will become the new president of ICANN. There are interesting allegations that Mr. Twomey has mis-used the .biz IP claim service.
ccTLD and international law fans will also closely follow the dust-up reported here between the government of Niue, a small Pacific island whose country-code, .nu, is administered by a business out of Massachusetts. The government of Niue is not ok with that now.