Cities and Countryside: An International Law Perspective

Abstract

Cities, as spaces of socio-cultural organization and economic interaction among people, have always played a dominant role in the development and implementation of international law. Today, a new strand of legal scholarship focuses on cities and local communities as competitors and partners with the nation State in a new project of modernization and democratization of international law. This paper looks at this new trend against the background of the historical narrative of cities in the development of international law. At the same time, it calls attention to the fact that half of humanity still lives and works in rural areas, in the vast countryside of the world. Rural communities have been the servants of the city since the beginning of time. Today, their dignity and rights are beginning to be recognized by acts of the United Nations such as the 2007 Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the 2018 Declaration on the Rights of Peasants. Yet, these people remain a disadvantaged and vulnerable class. A true modernization and democratization of international law requires that we keep a balanced approach to the legal recognition of the voices and rights of urban communities and those of the people who work and live in the countryside of the world.