The relationship between states, cities and international organizations is a useful prism to assess broader trends of the development of the international system. Engaging with sub-national actors like cities and their networks adds a level of complexity to the question of how independent an organization is and how it relates to the preferences of its member states. This chapter provides historical context to this current debate. It looks at how a conceivable international role of cities became an issue in the interwar era. In particular, it looks at how the ‘Union Internationale des Villes’, founded in 1913, sought some form of formal recognition from the League of Nations, but also fostered more modest ties with the International Labour Organization (ILO). This historical episode might not equip us with straightforward ‘lessons’ for today. But it might help us to adopt a more nuanced and informed perspective on current debates about international institutional reform and the promise that cities and their associations and networks can play in this regard.

INTRODUCTION

The framing of a topic as one of a ‘revival’ can be interpreted in different ways. With respect to the rule of law, it could point to an increasing awareness of its importance as well as to mounting challenges to the rule of law. This report interprets the common theme in the latter sense. Arguably, the current time is one in which the rule of law is no longer necessarily seen to be an ‘unqualified, universal good’. Attacks against the rule of law come from different corners. To some critical academics, the rule of law – and related notions like the Rechtsstaat and l’État de droit – are only a form of bourgeois camouflage, a veneer for protecting the interests of those who control the means of production in liberal-capitalist societies. Others seem to speak out against the rule of law – or act against its spirit – out of a sense of populist entitlement. A sentiment of ‘we the people’ may challenge various forms of elite rule – and the rule of law seems to be perceived by some as just another form of rule which has allegedly become detached from democratic decisions.

Approaching this topic from a German perspective might, at first sight, invite some complacency. The idea of the Rechtsstaat seems to be almost unchallenged, an unqualified success story of German constitutional law. For a long time, German constitutional traditions were leaning more towards a rule of law orientation than towards one of democracy

This chapter assesses the impact of the 2013 UN Human Rights Due Diligence Policy (HRDDP) and the 2016 IOM-UN agreement on the IOM’s relationship to human rights protection. In doing so, it contextualizes the ongoing debate of the organization’s normative framework, (controversial) human rights practices and relationship to the UN. The authors argue that by signing the 2016 UN-IOM agreement, the IOM is indirectly bound by the principles underlying the HRDDP as far as it cannot act against its core norms. At the same time, the article argues that given the policy’s limitations, one should not put too much hope into the applicability of the HRDDDP to the IOM. This is because it only aims at preventing “grave violations” of human rights in specific contexts. Therefore, the chapter concludes with some suggestions on how the HRDDP could be reformed in light of the IOM’s new relation with the UN to protect human rights more effectively.

The present volume contributes to the emerging field of comparative foreign relations law by focusing on how foreign relations law interacts with international law, a topic that has been underexplored in the literature. This concluding chapter reflects on the relationship between these two bodies of law, drawing on examples from this volume and also from The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign Relations Law. It begins by offering a working definition of foreign relations law that is both analytically distinct from international law and useful for comparative analysis. It then explains how foreign relations law and international law have important and often under-appreciated effects on each other, sometimes in ways that are constructive and mutually reinforcing, but at other times in ways that produce potential conflict.

Like an interface, foreign relations law addresses multiple and diverse questions about how the ‘domestic’ relates to the ‘international’ sphere. This introductory chapter unfolds the idea of bridges and boundaries between foreign relations law and public international law and develops the guiding questions of the volume. It also reflects on missed encounters between the two fields and introduces the core concepts and the approach of the book. Finally, it exposes the overall structure of the book and summarizes the contents of individual chapters.

Helmut Philipp Aust’s topic is the connection between foreign relations law and domestic conceptions of democracy, and in particular the question of ‘who gets to decide on the international commitments of a state?’. Populism and a broader inward–turn in the politics of many Western states, Aust writes, mean that ‘there is a growing level of discontent with the way that the external sphere is impacting on the internal’. These changing perceptions of ’the international’ filter through into different conceptions of foreign relations law, which, in turn, affect the ability of states to cooperate internationally. The chapter presents two variants of foreign relations law – a ’closed’ version prevalent in the USA, and a German version traditionally more open to international cooperation. Through a comparative analysis, Aust shows how the openness to international cooperation that was long seen to lie at the heart of the German Basic Law, is coming under increasing pressure.