On October 28, 2021, the twenty-second keynote speech of the "Fudan Transnational Corporations and Law Forum" was held successfully online. Thisspeech titled "City and International Law" was hosted by Dr JIANG Chaoyi, Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow of Fudan University Law School, delivered by Associate Professor ZHU Mingxin of Kenneth Wang School of Law, Soochow University, and commented by Professor CAI Congyan of Fudan University Law School.

Professor ZHU started the lecture with a literature review of this topic's academic history and underlined that the relations between city and international law did not become appealing to international law scholars until recently. In explaining the rationale behind this phenomenon, he illustrated the rise and fall of cities in the academic discourse of international law from the pre-Westphalia era, during the formation of the Westphalia system, and to the post-Westphalia era. Professor ZHU considered the "city" as a spatial and communication mode of human self-organization. While firstly being independent actors of international law in the pre-Westphalia era, cities were merged and represented by sovereign states during and after the establishment of the Westphalia system. However, more recently, cities gradually re-emerged from the black box of sovereign states.

Lastly, Professor ZHU shed light on the prospects of further research on the city and international law. The current dual identity of cities, namely, being internal organs of states and international actors at the same time, enables them to bring unique local perspectives into international affairs by participating under the framework of national constitutions and simultaneously as independent agents of international law in some areas. Although cities are no longer mere objects of international law, they would stay affected by international local government law. States would remain the dominant actor of international law and cannot be replaced by cities, and the relations between cities and states would encompass both cooperation and co-existence.

In the commenting session, Professor CAI shared some insightful thoughts. In the Q&A session, both Professors had an academically stimulating discussion with students on the necessity of policy unity nationally, urban construction, and the special roles of certain cities in China under international law.

On November 7, 2021, the Forum will host the twenty-third keynote speech titled "The Policy Orientation of Criminal Compliance " by ZHANG Yuanhuang, Professor of BeijingNormalUniversityLaw School.