ABSTRACT
Where have we received the image of cosmopolitanism from? And what is happening to it? As for this citizen of the world, we do not know what the future holds in store for it. One must ask today whether we can still make a legitimate distinction between the two forms of the metropolis – the City and the State. Moreover, one is seeking to inquire if an International Parliament of Writers1 can still, as its name seems to suggest, find inspiration in what has been called, for more than twenty centuries now, cosmopolitanism. For is it not the case that cosmopolitanism has something to do either with all the cities or with all the states of the world? At a time when the ‘end of the city’ resonates as though it were a verdict, at a time when this diagnosis or prognosis is held by many, how can we still dream of a novel status for the city, and thus for the ‘cities of refuge’, through a renewal of international law? Let us not anticipate a simple response to such a question. It will be necessary therefore to proceed otherwise, particularly if one is tempted to think, as I do, that ‘The Charter for the Cities of Refuge’ and ‘The International Agency for Cities of Refuge’ which appear on our programme must open themselves up to something more and other than merely banal articles in the literature on international law. They must, if they are to succeed in so doing, make an audacious call for a genuine innovation in the history of the right to asylum or the duty to hospitality.
