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The Urban Pushback: International Law as an Instrument of Cities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 December 2019

Janne E. Nijman
Janne E. Nijman*
Affiliation:
Professor of History and Theory of International Law, University of Amsterdam, and member of the board and academic director of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut, Den Haag.
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Extract

For a start, I would like to thank Veronika Fikfak for the invitation and initiating this panel. In my brief remarks, I aim to do three things. First, I would like to discuss briefly the development of the relationship between “cities and international law” and consequently the formation of a new research field. I will illustrate this formation by mentioning briefly two projects I am leading with friend and colleague Helmut Aust (Berlin): the ILA Study Group on “The Role of Cities in International Law” and a research handbook on the theme of cities and international law. I will end with some remarks regarding a paper I am currently working on: “The Urban Pushback”. The relationship between cities and international law is complex and multi-faceted. For the purpose of this Conference's Panel, my remarks focus on how international law has become an instrument of cities.

Type
Federalism Strikes Back: Is the One-Voice Doctrine in Decline?
Information
Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting , Volume 113 , 2019 , pp. 119 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by The American Society of International Law

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Footnotes

This panel was convened at 1:00 p.m., Thursday, March 28, 2019, by its moderator Marissa Jackson of the New York City Commission on Human Rights, who introduced the panelists: Michael J. Glennon of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; David Moore of the U.S. Agency for International Development; Janne E. Nijman of the University of Amsterdam and T.M.C. Asser Instituut; Dan Sarooshi QC of the University of Oxford; and Shana Tabak of the Tahirih Justice Center.

References

1 New Perspectives on the Divide Between National and International Law (Janne Nijman & André Nollkaemper eds., 2007).

2 Yishai Blank, The City and the World, 44 Colum. J. Transnat'l L. 875 (2006); Yishai Blank, Localism in the New Global Legal Order, 47 Harv. Int'l L.J. 263 (2006).

3 Gerald E. Frug & David J. Barron, International Local Government Law, 38 Urban Lawyer 1 (2006).

4 Cities for CEDAW, at http://citiesforcedaw.org.

5 City and County of San Francisco Municipal Code Administrative Code, CEDAW Ordinance, at https://sfgov.org/dosw/cedaw-ordinance.

6 Human Rights Cities, at https://humanrightscities.net/.

7 United Nations, Dep't of Econ. and Social Aff., The World's Cities in 2018—Data Booklet, UN Doc. ST/ESA/ SER.A/417.

8 UN Habitat, Cities in a Globalizing World: Global Report on Human Settlements (2001).

9 Approved by the UN Habitat Governing Council A/62/8, Resolution 21/3, Apr. 20, 2007.

10 The Globalisation of Urban Governance. Legal Perspectives on Sustainable Development Goal 11 (Helmut Aust & Anél du Plessis eds., 2019).

11 Janne Nijman, Renaissance of the City as Global Actor. The Role of Foreign Policy and International Law Practices in the Construction of Cities as Global Actors, in The Transformation of Foreign Policy: Drawing and Managing Boundaries from Antiquity to the Present 209–41 (Andreas Fahrmeir, Gunther Hellmann & Milos Vec eds., 2016).

12 See, for example the memorandum of understanding to establish the “Chicago – Mexico City Global Cities Economic Partnership” to “[f]oster trade in goods and services in key sectors, as included in Annex A, compliant with the rules of NAFTA,” available at https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GCEP-CHI-MEX-MOU_FINAL.pdf.

13 See, e.g., GA Res. 70/210, para. 5 (Feb. 17, 2016).

14 Helmut Aust, Shining Cities on the Hill? The Global City, Climate Change and International Law, 26 Eur. J. Int'l L. 255 (2015).

15 Martha Davis, Design Challenges for Human Rights Cities, 49 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 27 (2017). I will discuss these complexities more extensively in the upcoming paper.

16 Het Parool, Apr. 11, 2018.

17 New York, July 16, 2018.

18 As of May 14, 2019, the website lists thirty-six endorsing cities from all over the world.

19 Het Parool, July 16, 2018.