Abstract
This chapter discusses the self-portrayal of The Hague and Amsterdam as international law cities and investigates how international law is deployed as a key feature to construct a desired image and reach a certain audience. Instead of analysing the image building efforts as ‘cold’ branding strategies, we look at them through the lens of the self-portrait to shed light on the variety of motives and desires that are involved. We discuss the views of four municipality departments who work with the city’s international self-image on a daily basis. Looking at this picture through the self-portrait lens reveals a persistent tension between serving internal and external audiences, resulting in a constant balancing act between introspection and outward communication.
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Notes
- 1.
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, ed. Gunther Hellmann, Andreas Fahrmeir and Miloš Vec (Oxford Scholarship Online, 2016).
- 2.
Nijman, ibid.
- 3.
Barbara Oomen, Martha F. Davis and Michele Grigolo, “Introduction: The rise and challenges of human rights cities,” in Global Urban Justice: the rise of human rights cities, eds. Barbara Oomen, Martha F. Davis and Michele Grigolo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).
- 4.
Nijman, “Renaissance of the City.”; Helmut Aust, “Shining Cities on the Hill? The Global City, Climate Change, and International Law,” The European Journal of International Law 26, no.1 (2015): 255–278.
- 5.
Yishai Blank, “The City and the World,” Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 47, no.686 (2006): 875–939.
- 6.
Mihalis Kavaratzis, “From city marketing to city branding: Towards a theoretical framework for developing city brands,” Place Branding 1, no.1 (2004): 58–73.; Graham Hankinson and Pilippa Cowking, Branding in action: cases and strategies for profitable brand management (McGraw-Hill, 1993), 10.; Mihalis Kavaratzis and Gregory Ashworth, “City Branding: an effective assertion of identity or transitory marketing trick?,” Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 96, no.5 (2005): 10.
- 7.
Kavaratzis, “From city marketing to city branding”; Kavaratzis & Ashworth, “City Branding.”
- 8.
Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko, “City Branding as a Response to Global Intercity Competition,” Growth and Change 46, no.2 (2015): 233–252.
- 9.
Maria Cristina Paganoni, “City Branding and Social Inclusion in the Glocal City,” Mobilities 7, no.1 (2012): 13–31.
- 10.
Jørgen Stigel and Søren Frimann, “City Branding – All Smoke, No Fire?,” Nordicom Review 2 (2006): 245–268.
- 11.
Ray Crozier and Paul Greenhalgh, “Self-Portraits as Presentations of Self,” Leonardo 21, no.1 (1988): 30.
- 12.
Crozier & Greenhalgh, “Self-Portraits as Presentations of Self’,” 29.
- 13.
Amelia Jones, “The “Eternal Return”: Self-Portrait Photography as a Technology of Embodiment,” Signs 27, no.4 (2002): 950.
- 14.
Laura Cumming, A Face to the World: on Self-Portraits (William Collins, 2014), 5.
- 15.
Cumming, “A Face to the World,” 3.
- 16.
Jones, “The “Eternal Return”’; Cumming, ‘A Face to the World.”
- 17.
Bengt Arne Hulleman and Robert Govers, “The Hague, International City of Peace and Justice” in City Branding, ed. Keith Dinnie (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011): 152; Herman van der Wusten, “‘Legal Capital Of The World’: Political Centre-Formation In The Hague,” Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 97, no. 3 (2006): 256; Christine Schwöbel-Patel, Marketing Global Justice: The Political Economy of International Criminal Law (Cambridge University Press, 2021, forthcoming).
- 18.
Evert Meijers et al, “City Profile: The Hague,” Cities 41 (2014): 97; Van der Wusten, “Legal Capital,” 258.
- 19.
Van der Wusten, “Legal Capital,” 262.
- 20.
Van der Wusten, “Legal Capital,” 254–255; Schwöbel-Patel, Marketing Global Justice.
- 21.
The Hague Municipality, Aanpak Haagse Citybranding 2020. Doc. no. RIS288025. P. 5. https://denhaag.raadsinformatie.nl/document/3338671/1/RIS288025_bijlage%20Aanpak%20Haagse%20Citybranding%202020.
- 22.
‘Aanpak Haagse Citybranding 2020.’
- 23.
The Hague Municipality, ‘Programma Internationaal’. 24 March 2014. Doc. no. RIS 288025_151208. https://denhaag.raadsinformatie.nl/document/3338664/1/155-17122015-RIS288025%20Aanpak%20Haagse%20Citybranding%202020.
- 24.
For example, a tension between the The Hague municipality and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hulleman and Govers, “The Hague,” 154. Bureau Citybranding also emphasized a difference in approach between the municipality’s economic department and the more socially oriented departments. Interview with authors, 21 April 2020.
- 25.
Interview with authors, 21 April 2020.
- 26.
Interview with authors, 26 March 2020.
- 27.
Meijers et al. “City Profile,” 95; Robert Kloosterman and Hugo Priemus, “‘The Hague a Dual City? Causes and Policy Responses,” Built Environment 27, no. 3; Godfried Engbersen, Marion Van San and Arjen Leerkes, “A room with a view: Irregular immigrants in the legal capital of the world,” Ethnography 7, no. 2 (2006).
- 28.
For example, Engbersen contrasts the way in which irregular migrants in The Hague are excluded from the welfare state with the city’s ‘legal capital of the world’ profile. Engbersen et al, “A room with a view,” 237.
- 29.
Meijers et al., “City Profile,” 97.
- 30.
Interview with authors, 21 April 2020.
- 31.
A human rights city is a city (local government, municipality) that explicitly refers to international or regional human rights treaties and uses human rights in their local policies, programmes and projects. There are several networks of human rights cities, but the term is often self-declared.
- 32.
The People’s Movement for Human Rights Learning (PDHRE) is the first official Human Rights City network. See: https://www.pdhre.org/ and for the European network see: https://humanrightscities.net/.
- 33.
In the policy domain ‘Youth’ human rights are integrated because of new national youth law that is pillared on the International Convention on the Rights of the Child. City Council meeting on the Human Rights Agenda, 14 September 2016.
- 34.
For Amsterdam’s policies on LGBTQ rights, see: https://www.amsterdam.nl/bestuur-organisatie/volg-beleid/diversiteit/lhbti-roze-agenda/.
- 35.
For the policy report on Amsterdam Responsible Capital, see Gemeente Amsterdam, Internationaal Beleid 2014–2018. Amsterdam Internationaal Verantwoordelijke Hoofdstad, https://assets.amsterdam.nl/publish/pages/869848/herijking_internationaal_beledi_20142018.pdf.
- 36.
Amsterdam Responsible Capital Policy Report, p. 4.
- 37.
Interview with the International Office, 2018.
- 38.
Amsterdam Responsible Capital Policy Report, p. 12.
- 39.
Amsterdam predominantly focuses on sharing expertise on the following themes: the protection of human rights defenders, LGBTQ and women’s rights. Amsterdam Responsible Capital Policy Report, p. 12.
- 40.
Amsterdam is a member of several human rights-oriented networks, such as Shelter City, Fearless Cities and Solidarity City initiative.
- 41.
Amsterdam Responsible Capital Policy Report, p. 15; see, for example, the following news articles that describe how mayor Van der Laan addressed the human rights situation in Israel: https://www.parool.nl/nieuws/van-der-laan-bespreekt-mensenrechten-in-israel~be5bff9c/.
- 42.
In a PowerPoint presentation that is used during international visits to introduce the city of Amsterdam, human rights form one of the focus points. See: https://www.amsterdam.nl/bestuur-organisatie/volg-beleid/internationale/presentation/.
- 43.
Interview with the International Office, 2018.
- 44.
Shelter City allows foreign human rights defenders to spend time in the Netherlands. See: https://sheltercity.nl/city/amsterdam/.
- 45.
Website Shelter City; website Program Diversity https://www.amsterdam.nl/bestuur-organisatie/volg-beleid/diversiteit/.
- 46.
Amsterdam Responsible Capital Policy Report, p. 16.
- 47.
Interview with Program Diversity, 2018.
- 48.
The Amsterdam Human Rights Agenda can be found on the local government’s webpage. Gemeente Amsterdam, Brief Mensenrechten in Amsterdam. See https://assets.amsterdam.nl/publish/pages/799393/brief_mensenrechten_in_amsterdam.pdf.
- 49.
Amsterdam Human Rights Agenda, p. 1.
- 50.
Interview with Program Diversity, 2018.
- 51.
For the report Amsterdammers over Mensenrechten, see: https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/LocalGvt/States/Amsterdam_5.pdf.
- 52.
- 53.
- 54.
Interview with Program Diversity, 2018.
- 55.
Interview with Program Diversity, 2018. This tendency is also explored by Barbara Oomen. See Barbara Oomen, “Rights for others: the slow home-coming of human rights in the Netherlands,” in Cambridge Studies in Law and Society, ed. Christopher Arup, Martin Chanock and Pat O’Malley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
- 56.
Paganoni, “City Branding and Social Inclusion in the Glocal City”; Stigel and Frimann, “City Branding – All Smoke, No Fire?”
- 57.
Cumming, “A Face to the World,” 6.
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Aust, Helmut. 2015. Shining Cities on the Hill? The Global City, Climate Change, and International Law. The European Journal of International Law 26 (1): 255–278.
Blank, Yishai. 2006. The City and the World. Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 47 (686): 875–939.
Crozier, Ray, and Paul Greenhalgh. 1988. Self-Portraits as Presentations of Self. Leonardo 21 (1): 30.
Cumming, Laura. 2014. A Face to the World: on Self-Portraits. London: William Collins.
Engbersen, Godfried, Marion Van San, and Arjen Leerkes. 2006. A room with a view: Irregular immigrants in the legal capital of the world. Ethnography 7 (2): 209–242.
Hankinson, Graham, and Philippa Cowking. 1993. Branding in Action: Cases and Strategies for Profitable Brand Management. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hulleman, Bengt Arne, and Robert Govers. 2011. The Hague, International City of Peace and Justice. In City Branding, ed. Keith Dinnie, 150–156. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jones, Amelia. 2002. The “Eternal Return”: Self-Portrait Photography as a Technology of Embodiment. Signs 27 (4): 947–978.
Kavaratzis, Mihalis. 2004. From City Marketing to City Branding: Towards a Theoretical Framework for Developing City Brands. Place Branding 1 (1): 58–73.
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Roodenburg, L., Stolk, S. (2020). The Desire to be an International Law City: A Self-Portrait of The Hague and Amsterdam. In: Stolk, S., Vos, R. (eds) International Law's Collected Stories. Palgrave Studies in International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58835-9_5
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