[06 Nov 2026] Urban Institute-SSFI Lunchtime Seminar: Zonification, Cities and International Law

SYNOPSIS

International law is traditionally based on clear-cut territorial divisions. Boundaries define the territory of states. Territorial jurisdiction operates on the basis of the assumption that states exercise control throughout their territory. While this understanding may be a fiction in many contexts, this fiction fulfils a useful function as it protects states against outside interference. At the current historical moment, this understanding of the territorial unity of the state is under attack, however. Various developments intersect in this regard. Propelled by libertarian thinkers and tech entrepreneurs, the idea to create special zones which are taken out of the control of the respective nation state enjoys considerable popularity. These attempts can take various forms, ranging from the creation of special economic zones (a fairly established concept in international economic law) over the creation of so-called charter cities with a form of quasi-independence from the host state’s general legal system to suggestions to provide for a “free economic zone” in parts of Eastern Ukraine as an element of a conceivable peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. Taken together, these various attempts can be subsumed under the label of “zonification”. Cities play a particular role in this context. For instance, in his 20 points peace plan for Gaza, US President Trump included the suggestion to develop Gaza in the form of a special economic zone which could seek inspiration from the “miracle cities of the Middle East”. 

This talk will explore the concept of zonification further, connect the development with established principles and rules of international law and will ask the broader question of the implications that this development will have for the future of the international legal order and contemporary understandings of good urban governance.   

SPEAKER

Professor Helmut Philipp Aust
Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law

Helmut Philipp Aust is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany. From 2016 to 2026 he was Professor of Public and International Law at Freie Universität Berlin. From 2025 to 2027 he is Visiting Professor at the Urban Institute of Singapore Management University. He also serves as Co-Chair of the International Law Association’s Committee on Urbanisation and International Law – Potential and Pitfalls. He has published widely in the fields of public international law and comparative constitutional law and his publications include Complicity and the Law of State Responsibility (CUP 2011); The Interpretation of International Law by Domestic Courts (OUP 2017, co-edited with Georg Nolte); Das Recht der globalen Stadt (Mohr Siebeck 2017); The Globalisation of Urban Governance (Routledge 2019, co-edited with Anél du Plessis); the Research Handbook on International Law and Cities (Edward Elgar 2021, co-edited with Janne E. Nijman), Encounters between Foreign Relations Law and International Law (CUP 2021, co-edited with Thomas Kleinlein); as well as the Research Handbook on International Law and Domestic Legal Systems (Edward Elgar 2024, co-edited with Heike Krieger and Felix Lange).

 

CHAIR

Associate Professor Liu Nengye
Director of the Singapore Sustainable Futures Initiative; Urban Fellow (Urban Governance); 
Associate Professor of Law, Yong Pung How School of Law, Singapore Management University