The term "international administrative law" (diritto amministrativo internazionale, droit administratif international, internationales Verwaltungsrecht) remains an enigma of public law. Since the 1900s, the term has been traditionally understood in two different ways.
On one hand, some authors (J. Gascon y Marin, P.
Kazansky, A, Rapisardi-Mirabelli) used this term regarding the administrative competencies of those various "international administrative unions". On the other hand, other authors (P.
Fedozzi, K. Neumeyer, G.
Biscottini) used the term to exclusively refer to the norms of national administrative law, which address certain foreign elements; i.e. as a parallel to the discipline of international private law. This article deals with these two different understandings of "international administrative law" and with their impact for recent developments in legal scholarship.
The article also addresses currently renewed interest in the "international administrative law" and its consequences for the newly established doctrine of "global administrative law".