ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses legal relationships between international institutions and cities, especially in the fields of sustainable development and urban security. As “global cities” have emerged as para-diplomatic actors and international institutions have discovered local governments as partners, another dimension has been added to multilevel global governance: the “glocal” city. A key element of “glocal governance” is direct legal relationships between international institutions and local governments. Hence, this chapter looks into the public law that frames, limits and legitimates relations between local governments and international institutions. How does international institutional law regulate relationships with cities? And how does domestic local government law address, and evolve in response to, relations between cities and international institutions? The chapter first analyses the role of the city in international institutional law. The focus will be on those institutions which have been involved with local governments early and substantially, especially the World Bank and UN agencies like Habitat. The second part turns to the comparative law of glocal cities, focusing on cities in the Global South and on the legal treatment of informal settlements and the right to housing, which poses a key challenge for creating safe and sustainable cities and raises key questions of glocal governance.
