Local governments on the global stage. Territorial non-state actors, city diplomacy and international legal order(s)

• ALESSANDRO P. LEONARDI ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Palermo

     University of Palermo

     Palermo, Italia

     
• Localización: Ordine Internazionale e Diritti Umani, ISSN-e 2284-3531, Nº. 2, 2021, págs. 400-421
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Local governmental bodies as well as territorial public authorities at the sub-state level, as both political-administrative authorities and democratically elected bodies delegated to represent territorial civil communities, implement an autonomous system of trans-local foreign relations. Such a model, widely known among scholars in international relations as city diplomacy , has gradually established itself as a growing alternative to the classic model of intergovernmental international relations.

    This study aims to offer some guidelines on this topic, moving from the observation of trans-local and foreign practices enacted by local governments in their network associative forms to the field of the human rights protection, at the same time analysing some legal perspectives potentially adaptable to them in order to define their nature, subjectivity, and reasonable means of legal guardianship that should be granted to them in international fora.

    Far from providing answers, this study moreover intends to help stimulate the debate between jurists and public sector practitioners on the classification and subjectivity of sub- state governments in light of the current systems of international law, transnational law and international relations.