IRGLUS News | Vol. 1, No. 5

The June 2014 edition of the IRGLUS Newsletter

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IRGLUS NEWS | VOL. 1, NO. 5 | JUNE 2014
The newsletter of the International Group on Law and Urban Space
www.irglus.org | www.facebook.com/IRGLUS

'For Your Protection: Gated Cities around the World in Pictures

IRGLUS's Facebook feed is kept up to date on a regular basis with news and opinion pieces relating to the law and urban space.

One of the stories uploaded to the Facebook site include one from the Guardian newspaper, containing photographs of various gated communities around the world.

What do you think? Feel free to comment on this Facebook thread.

EVENTS

UN Habitat and the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS) at the University of London held an “Urban Law Day” at the IALS in London on 14 March 2014.

The day aimed to facilitate discussion over emerging issues in urban law and was attended by several IRGLUS members. Both IRGLUS founding member Edesio Fernandes and IRGLUS global co-ordinator Marius Pieterse were among the speakers at the event, which followed from IALS and UN Habitat’s announcement of their collaboration in furthering a joint research agenda, and advancing academic knowledge, in the area of urban law.

Topics discussed at the event included the interrelation between property markets and urban development, the role of law and regulation in private sector urban investment, the quality of urban legislation as well as the inclusivity of urban law in light of rights to access the city.

The event concluded by considering the relative dearth of Masters-level academic offerings in urban law, worldwide, which UN Habitat aims to counter. (IRGLUS members aware of any such offerings at local universities are urged to get in touch).

NEW BOOK

The Expanding Spaces of Law presents readers with cutting-edge scholarship in legal geography. An invaluable resources for those new to this line of scholarship, the book also pushes the boundaries of legal geography, reinvigorating previous modes of inquiry and investigating new directions. It guides scholars interested in the law-space-power nexus to underexplored empirical sites and to novel theoretical and disciplinary resources. Finally, The Expanding Spaces of Law asks readers to think about the temporality and dynamism of legal spaces.

A copy may be obtained here.

CONTRIBUTIONS

IRGLUS is highly dependent on its members. As such, we welcome contributions from our members. This could range from short vignettes, to photography, news and events.

We will contact various members directly to ask for these contributions, but if you would like to contribute to the next newsletter, please feel free to contact us.

We also welcome feedback on this newsletter, as well as the other initiatives we have implemented to give IRGLUS a stronger virtual institutional basis.

IRGLUS on Facebook

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Hello Oñati!

Greetings, all! This is the fifth edition of the IRGLUS newsletter, which comes to you a day before the IRGLUS workshop on Law, Urban Space and Social Space, which is due to be held in Oñati, Spain. We are very excited about the workshop, as well as meeting some of you, and will report back on the proceedings in our next newsletter.

In this issue, we report briefly on the Urban Law Day recently co-organised by UN Habitat and the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London. We also include a brief vignette on the increased role and importance of local governments in urban service delivery and the progressive realisation of socio-economic rights.

Members are once again reminded that they can feature their own work, advertise relevant events and research projects, or submit short, topical vignettes for publication in future editions of this newsletter.

We wish everyone well over the coming two months and look forward to hearing from you.

Thomas Coggin and Marius Pieterse
Global Co-ordinators

THE IRGLUS VIGNETTE

Local Government Accountability and Competence: Towards a New Era?

Marius Pieterse

The realities of urbanization mean that cities and towns are increasingly the sites at which, and the means through which, civil and political, as well as socio-economic rights are actualized. This is spartking a shift in focus in development and governance studies, with increased reseach being conducted on the role played by local, rather than national or provincial, governments in realizing the goals of democratic developmental states.

It would seem that, in many states, local governments are increasingly being saddled with the responsbility of satisfying urban residents' socio-economic needs. But this responsibility is often not fully accompanied by the constitutional power, autonomy and resources required to carry it out effectively.

Expropriación y conflicto social en cinco metrópolis de America Latina

IRGLUS member Antonio Azuela published in November 2013 a book on expropriation and social conflicts with a focus on five Latin American cities. An English version will be available. Members are advised to contact him directly for more information.

The description below (in Spanish) provides more information on the book:

En los tiempos de lo que se llama la gobernanza, dominados por la idea de que todo acto de gobierno debe ser producto del consenso social, privar a alguien de su propiedad sin su consentimiento, aunque sea para satisfacer una necesidad pública o social, parece ser un desatino. Y sin embargo, todos los estados contemporáneos, incluso los más comprometidos con la tradición liberal, recurren a la expropiación para una cosa y otra.

En las ciudades de América Latina, la expropiación ha dado lugar a tensiones y conflictos que a veces producen efectos tan inesperados como una crisis financiera en Sao Paulo o el desafuero del jefe de gobierno en la ciudad de México. ¿Para qué fines se usa hoy en día la expropiación? ¿En qué condiciones suscita los conflictos más enconados? ¿Cómo procesan los poderes judiciales esos conflictos? Este libro reúne las respuestas de un grupo de investigadores que ha venido discutiendo el tema por varios años, con el apoyo del Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales y del Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Antonio also advised us that he is soon to publish a book on Judges & Urban Conflict in Latin American cities. We look forward to hearing more!

Have you visited the IRGLUS website?

www.irglus.org