ABSTRACT
Globalization and digitization are resulting in an incipient unbundling of the exclusive authority over territory and people that we have long associated with the nation-state. The most strategic instantiation of this unbundling is probably the global city, which has emerged as a partly denationalized platform for global capital and a diverse mix of people from all over the world. This process brings with it operational and conceptual openings for the participation of nonstate actors in transboundary domains once exclusive to the national state; among such actors are nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), firstnation peoples, and antiglobalization activists. They also include immigrants and refugees who are subjects of adjudication in human-rights decisions and as such, are a type of international legal persona. Further, they include multinational corporations and global markets that can engage in direct transactions with each other, bypassing many of the strictures of the interstate system that until recently were the necessary frameworks for cross-border activities. These diverse nonstate actors can gain international visibility as individuals and organizations, and thereby overcome the type of invisibility entailed by aggregate membership in a nation-state. The nation-state was, until recently, the exclusive representative in the international domain; now individuals and groups can have direct representation in international fora.
