Aust & Nijman: The Urbanisation of International Law – A Post-Cold War History

Helmut Aust (Freie Universität Berlin - Law) & Janne Elisabeth Nijman (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies; Univ. of Amsterdam - Law) have posted The Urbanisation of International Law – A Post-Cold War History (in Cambridge History of International Law, Volume XII: International Law since the Cold War, Eyal Benvenisti & Dino Kritsiotis eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This is a chapter written for the Post-Cold War volume of the Cambridge History of International Law Series. Interest in cities as part of international law’s historiography is a sign of the times, we argue. It is a next step in the ‘turn to the city’ that unfolded in international legal scholarship in the post-Cold War era. While generally invisible in traditional international legal scholarship, the city has moved into the periphery of the discipline’s historiography and is now recognised as a relevant entry point of international legal histories, for example, to claim the relation between imperialism and international law or to approach international law as a global development project.

We will show how the emergence of the ‘turn to the city’ in international law is met by a ‘turn to international institutions and law’ by cities. These processes are mutually constitutive, non-linear, and rather complex. They unfold in both international life and international law scholarship and they are very much post-Cold War phenomena. As such, they warrant contextualisation and discussion in this volume. Building on work by Curtis and Ikenberry, we argue that the global city is the historically specific urban form produced by the specific political configuration of the post-Cold War liberal world order, and also note that the rapidly changing geo-political and geo-economic situation we are witnessing at the time of writing in late 2022 may affect the future of (global) cities profoundly.

The chapter first examines and explains the ascent of cities in both international law practice and scholarship. Subsequently, we discuss some implications for international law and institutions as well as for international legal scholarship, and for international legal historiography in particular.

It shows how the interest in the city has caused a certain ‘urban consciousness’ in international law and governance, and how the normative developments testify to a broadening of the categories of international law and to an entanglement of the various normative webs from the local to the global. Looking back at the period since the end of the Cold War, we can hence speak of an urbanisation of international law – a development which has not radically transformed the international legal system, but has enriched it with another level at which important developments in practice as well as in the accompanying scholarship can be observed.