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International Legal Collage of an Ideal City

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International Law's Collected Stories

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Abstract

International law is showing an increasing interest in the governance of cities. The most striking expression of this interest is a collective construction of a vision of an ideal city based on international legal values. The UN and other actors present it as a harmonious liberal approach to what cities should look like and how they should be governed. However, in this chapter I argue that the vision of an ideal city developed through international law is better viewed as a collage in which the tension and ambivalence between different approaches to governance of cities remain unresolved.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    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); Helmut Aust and Anel Du Plessis, eds. The Globalisation of Urban Governance: Legal perspectives on Sustainable development Goal 11. New York: Routledge, 2019.; Helmut Aust and Janne Nijman, eds. Research Handbook on Cities and International Law. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming; Yishai Blank. “The City and the World” Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 44 (2006); Luis Eslava, Local Space, Global Life: The Everyday Operation of International Law and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.; Gerald Frug and David Barron. “International Local Government Law” The Urban lawyer 38, no. 1 (2006); Ileana M Porras. “The City and International Law: In Pursuit of Sustainable Development” Fordham Urban Law Journal 36 (2009); Miha Marčenko. “The Role of the city in international law and governance” PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, forthcoming; Janne Nijman. “Renaissance of the City as Global Actor” in The Transformation of Foreign Policy: Drawing and Managing Boundaries from Antiquity to the Present, edited by Gunther Hellmann, Andreas Fahrmeir, and Milo Vec, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016; Barbara Oomen and Moritz Baumgärtel. “Frontier Cities: The Rise of Local Authorities as an Opportunity for International Human Rights Law” The European Journal of International Law, 29, no. 2 (2018); Lisa Roodenburg. “Diversity and Migration in Global Cities: Human Rights as a Source of Trust and/or Control” PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, forthcoming.

  2. 2.

    International law in this chapter overlaps with the concept of global governance. As such, international law does not signify only formal, state-centric institutional structure. Instead, it includes other less formal ways of international ordering that interact with and surround the norms, institutions and institutional processes considered to belong to the formal, state-centric, international institutional structure.

  3. 3.

    “HABITAT III.” HABITAT III. Last modified March 11 2020. http://habitat3.org/.

  4. 4.

    UN General Assembly, New Urban Agenda, UNGA RES/71/256. New York, 2016.

  5. 5.

    The New Urban Agenda is embedded in the long-lasting liberal governance agenda, promoted by the UN and other international institutions. See Ileana M Porras. “The City and International Law: In Pursuit of Sustainable Development” Fordham Urban Law Journal 36 (2009).

  6. 6.

    UN Habitat, World Cities Report 2016—Urbanization and Development: Emerging Futures. Nairobi, 2016.

  7. 7.

    Ibid. 47–68.

  8. 8.

    “UN forum spotlights cities, where struggle for sustainability ‘will be won or lost’” United Nations. Last modified July 14, 2018.

    https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2018/07/un-forum-spotlights-cities-struggle-sustainability-will-won-lost/.

  9. 9.

    UN Habitat, World Cities Report 2016 (no.6).

  10. 10.

    Prominent examples are World Urban Forums, described below, and a more long-lasting institutional process called the World Urban Campaign.

  11. 11.

    “10th World Urban Forum in Abu Dhabi” UN-Habitat. Last modified May 10, 2020. https://wuf.unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/WUF10_final_declared_actions.pdf.

  12. 12.

    Ibid.

  13. 13.

    UN-Habitat. World Urban Forum. Kuala Lumpur Declaration on Cities 2030. Kuala Lumpur, 2018.

  14. 14.

    UN General Assembly, New Urban Agenda.

  15. 15.

    Ibid, p. 12.

  16. 16.

    The New Urban Agenda itself originates in Agenda 2030, a larger UN-led process aimed at creating a general blueprint for sustainable development. Through Agenda 2030, states have in 2015 agreed to try to accomplish 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One of these goals, SDG 11, aims to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. See UN General Assembly, Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, A/RES/70/1 New York. 2015.

  17. 17.

    “HABITAT III.” HABITAT III. Last modified March 11 2020. http://habitat3.org/.

  18. 18.

    “Habitat III Informal Hearings with Local Authorities Associations.” IISD. Last modified October 9, 2018 http://enb.iisd.org/habitat/3/authorities/.

  19. 19.

    “Policy units” HABITAT III. Last modified March 11 2020.

    http://habitat3.org/the-new-urban-agenda/preparatory-process/policy-units/.

  20. 20.

    UN General Assembly, New Urban Agenda, p. 12.

  21. 21.

    Ibid, pp. 12, 14.

  22. 22.

    “Three big ideas to achieve sustainable cities and communities” World Bank. Last modified December 2018 http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/immersive-story/2018/01/31/3-big-ideas-to-achieve-sustainable-cities-and-communities. For more in-depth exploration of the World Bank’s engagement with SDG 11 and New Urban Agenda see Judy L Baker, Gauri U. Gadgil. East Asia and Pacific Cities: Expanding Opportunities for the Urban Poor. World Bank: Washington, DC, 2017.

  23. 23.

    Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments. Statement of the second world assembly of local and regional governments to the third UN conference on housing and sustainable urban development. Quito, 2016.

  24. 24.

    Joel Bolnick, “Development as Reform and Counter-reform: Paths Travelled by Slum / Shack Dwellers International” in Can NGOs make a difference? The challenge of development alternatives, edited by Anthony Bebbington, Samuel Hickey, Diana Mitlin (2008 ZED Books), p. 331.

  25. 25.

    Budd Hopkins. “Modernism and the Collage Aesthetic” New England Review 18, no. 2 (1997), p. 6.

  26. 26.

    Thomas P. Brockelman, The Frame and the Mirror: On Collage and the Postmodern. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2001, p. 10.

  27. 27.

    Budd Hopkins. “Modernism and the Collage Aesthetic” New England Review 18, no. 2 (1997), p. 9.

  28. 28.

    Laszlo K. Gefin. “Collage Theory, Reception and the Cutups of William Burroughs” in Perspectives on Contemporary Literature: Literature and the Other Arts, edited by David Hershberg, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1987, p. 94.

  29. 29.

    Rona Cran, Collage in Twentieth-Century art, literature, and Culture: Joseph Cornell, William Burroughs, Frank O’Hara, and Bob Dylan. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2014, p. 14.

  30. 30.

    Ibid, p. 32.

  31. 31.

    UN General Assembly, New Urban Agenda. para 15.

  32. 32.

    United Cities and Local Governments. GOLD IV Report: Decentralization and Local Democracy in the World. Barcelona, 2017.

  33. 33.

    “The II World Forum of Local Governments showcases local policies committed to 2030 Agenda.” United Cities and Local Governments. Last modified January 25 2019. https://www.uclg.org/en/media/news/ii-world-forum-local-governments-showcases-local-policies-committed-2030-agenda.

  34. 34.

    “How do city leaders get things done? Learning from mayors in Japan.” World Bank. Last modified December 11, 2018. http://blogs.worldbank.org/sustainablecities/category/tags/new-urban-agenda.

  35. 35.

    World Bank. Africa’s Cities: Opening Doors to the World. by Somik Vinay Lall, Vernon Henderson and Anthony J Venables. Washington DC, 2017, pp. 8–32; World Bank. Competitive cities for jobs and growth: what, who, and how. Austin Kilroy, Louis Francis, Megha Mukim, Stefano Negri. Washington, D.C, 2015.

  36. 36.

    World Bank. Africa’s Cities: Opening Doors to the World, by Somik Vinay Lall, Vernon Henderson and Anthony J Venables. Washington DC, 2017.

  37. 37.

    UN General Assembly, New Urban Agenda, pp. 21–24.

  38. 38.

    “Slum Dwellers International joins the World Urban Campaign.” Muungano. Last modified December 2018. https://www.muungano.net/browseblogs/2013/04/30/slum-dwellers-international-joins-the-world-urban-campaign.

  39. 39.

    Slum Dwellers International. Know Your City: Slum Dwellers Count. Cape Town, 2018, p. 2.

  40. 40.

    David Harvey. “The Right to the City.” New Left Review, Vol 53 (2008), pp. 23–40.

  41. 41.

    “Habitat3: celebrate the inclusion of The Right to the City in the New Urban Agenda” Global Platform for the Right to the City. Last modified January 2019 http://www.righttothecityplatform.org.br/habitat3-celebrate-the-inclusion-of-the-right-to-the-city-in-the-new-urban-agenda/.

  42. 42.

    Ibid.

  43. 43.

    UN General Assembly. Report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context. A/70/270. New York 2015; UN General Assembly. Report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context. A/HRC/28/62 New York 2014.

  44. 44.

    “Open statement Habitat III: Shift towards a New Urban Agenda based on human rights.” UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Last modified January 2019. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20669&LangID=E.

  45. 45.

    Jane Briant Carant “Unheard voices: a critical discourse analysis of the Millennium Development Goals’ evolution into the Sustainable Development Goals” Third World Quarterly 38, no. 1 (2017), pp. 16–41; Sanjay Reddy and Antoine Heuty, “Global Development Goals: The Folly of Technocratic Pretensions.” Development Policy Review 26 no. 1 (2008), pp. 5–28.

  46. 46.

    “Alternative Forums outside of Habitat III” Habitat International Coalition. Last modified January 2018. http://www.hlrn.org/news.php?id=pnFpZw==#.XKnuX5gzbb3.

  47. 47.

    For a different view see: David Satterthwaite, “Successful, safe and sustainable cities: towards a New Urban Agenda” Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance 19 (2016), p. 8.

  48. 48.

    Thomas P. Brockelman. The Frame and the Mirror: On Collage and the Postmodern. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2001, p. 10.

  49. 49.

    Kathleen Vaughan. “Pieced Together: Collage as an Artist’s Method for Interdisciplinary Research.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 4, no.1 (2005), p. 32.

  50. 50.

    UN Habitat, World Cities Report 2016—Urbanization and Development: Emerging Futures. Nairobi, 2016, pp. 47–68; UN General Assembly. Report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context. A/HRC/34/5118. New York, 2017.

  51. 51.

    Chantal Mouffe. The Democratic Paradox. New York: Verso, 2000, p. 33.

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Websites

Documents and Publications

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. T.M.C. Asser Instituut / University of Amsterdam, The Hague, The Netherlands

    Miha Marčenko

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  1. Miha Marčenko
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Correspondence to Miha Marčenko .

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  1. T.M.C. Asser Instituut / University of Amsterdam, The Hague, The Netherlands

    Sofia Stolk

  2. VU Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Renske Vos

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Marčenko, M. (2020). International Legal Collage of an Ideal City. 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_6

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