Janne Nijman

Biography

Janne Nijman is an associate professor of public international law at the Department of European and International Law and a senior research fellow of the Amsterdam Center for International Law (ACIL). She participates in The International Rule of Law research program. She is one of two Deans for PhD students of the Law School. Currently, Janne Nijman is a member on the ILA International Committee on Non-State Actors. She is an editor on the board of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law as well as editor on the board of the Grotiana Journal. Nijman is a member of the executive board of Oikos, a NGO focused on fair and sustainable globalisation, and Research advisor on Global Justice to The Broker, a bimonthly magazine that aims to 'bridge the gap' between academics and development policy makers. She is also on the board of the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Internationaal Recht (NVIR, the Dutch branch of the International Law Association). She acts as a guest lecturer at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations "Clingendael" and at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies (UvA).
Previously, she has been a post-doc researcher in the ACIL-based NWO Pioneer Project “The Divide and Interaction between National law and International Law.” Janne Nijman has been a Global Research Fellow of New York University School of Law (2003-04), affiliated to the History and Theory of International Law Program of the Institute for International Law and Justice, and a Visiting Fellow at Queen Mary College School of Law, University of London ( summer 2006). Nijman is founder and director of N.I.L.O. (www.nilaw.eu).
 Janne Nijman is an associate professor of public international law at the Department of European and International Law and a senior research fellow of the Amsterdam Center for International Law (ACIL). She participates in The International Rule of Law research program. She is one of two Deans for PhD students of the Law School. Currently, Janne Nijman is a member on the ILA International Committee on Non-State Actors. She is an editor on the board of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law as well as editor on the board of the Grotiana Journal. Nijman is a member of the executive board of Oikos, a NGO focused on fair and sustainable globalisation, and Research advisor on Global Justice to The Broker, a bimonthly magazine that aims to 'bridge the gap' between academics and development policy makers. She is also on the board of the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Internationaal Recht (NVIR, the Dutch branch of the International Law Association). She acts as a guest lecturer at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations "Clingendael" and at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies (UvA).
Previously, she has been a post-doc researcher in the ACIL-based NWO Pioneer Project “The Divide and Interaction between National law and International Law.” Janne Nijman has been a Global Research Fellow of New York University School of Law (2003-04), affiliated to the History and Theory of International Law Program of the Institute for International Law and Justice, and a Visiting Fellow at Queen Mary College School of Law, University of London ( summer 2006). Nijman is founder and director of N.I.L.O. (www.nilaw.eu).
 

Abstract

The Future of the City and the International Law of the Future

Janne Nijman observes that globalisation is accompanied by urbanisation, and that many – if not most – of the challenges of globalisation come to the fore in cities: environmental pollution, crime, inequality, migration, cultural diversity, unemployment; to name a few. She distinguishes between the private city (the collective of private economic interests) and the public city (the city governments who increasingly operate as global actors). In her article she presents six propositions on how the public city will affect international law. She sees that direct links between cities and global institutions will intensify. This is already very visible in the area of environmental law, with NGO’s facilitating these links. Cities will also be implementers of international law of their own accord, thus bypassing the state. Connected with this, Janne Nijman envisages that the international law of the future will ‘de-formalise’; following local judges city governments will apply it simply by way of ‘persuasive authority’. Last but not least, cities themselves will directly become part of the processes of international rule making. Given all this, cities will increasingly become actors in the making of international law and informal rules. They will be big influencers of international negotiations. Proceeding from these phenomena Nijman even asks the question whether cities will, in the future, acquire the status of international legal person, alongside that of states. Such a formal development would all the more change the state-centric system of today into the multi-actor system of the future.