Frontier Cities: The Rise of Local Authorities as an Opportunity for International Human Rights Law

Description

The growing influence and self-confidence of local authorities count among the most interesting recent phenomena in global governance. While not entirely oblivious, international law as a field has struggled to get ahead of this dynamic, focusing on how to integrate local authorities into static conventional frameworks firmly based on the notion of state sovereignty. However, as a discussion of the global state of affairs and a focus on human rights cities shows, local actors increasingly claim and obtain a key role in the realization of international law. Additionally, they hold important potential to address some of the most pressing challenges to international human rights law concerning its efficacy and legitimacy. This article calls therefore for a proactive approach to the study of local authorities which considers local authorities as a ‘new frontier’ in international law generally, and human rights law specifically. It proposes a critical research agenda for this purpose which could produce important new insights into 1) the continued relevance and legitimacy of human rights as a discourse of governance, 2) the bearing of domestic constitutional arrangements on the implementation of human rights law, and 3) questions of, and possible shifts in legal subjecthood in contexts of ‘state failure’.

Period	15 Nov 2017
Event title	The politics of uncertainty: producing, reinforcing and mediating (legal) uncertainty in local refugee reception
Event type	Conference
Location	Göttingen, GermanyShow on map