МІСЬКЕ ПРАВО: СУЧАСНИЙ ПРАВОВИЙ ЛАНДШАФТ

The article argues that the rapid strengthening of cities as centers of social life and governance requires revising modern-era concepts of the relationship between national and local (urban) law and recognizing urban law as an autonomous legal locus shaped by spatial criteria. Against the background of global urbanization and the historical role of urban law in the formation of national legal orders, it shows how the once homogeneous legal space of the nation-state differentiates into national and local (urban) legal orders, each interacting in its own way with international legal processes.Using an urbanist approach, the author characterizes the city as a legal center with a much higher concentration of legal relations and a specific legal culture, which justifies orienting legal analysis to the city as an independent legal unit. At the same time, many cities are burdened with legislation that poorly corresponds to urban realities and lack institutional capacity to adapt norms, which generates widespread informality, parallel regulatory systems, and “informal urban law” as a de facto norm.The article links these dynamics to a broader crisis of state legitimacy, especially in “criminal states” (aggressor, oppressive, corrupt, or negligent), where national law becomes a decorative façade for criminal governance and loses the ability to mediate growing tensions between urban communities and discredited state institutions. In such conditions, the traditional functional division in which cities specialize in finance and states in warfare becomes exhausted, and the balance between cities and nation-states is shifting, which the author illustrates through the impact of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.On this basis, the article conceptualizes “urban law” as the body of norms that shape cities, their land use, institutions, and finances, and that structure the relationship between city and state within a differentiated legal landscape. The concluding thesis is that future legal development will increasingly depend on negotiated compromises between powerful cities and effective nation-states, and on constructing urban legal frameworks capable of reconciling intense local legal cultures with broader national and international legal orders.本文主张，随着城市作为社会生活与治理中心的地位快速巩固，亟需修订现代语境下国家法与地方（城市）法的关系认知，并承认城市法（urban law）是一种以空间标准为依托的自主法律场域。立足于全球城市化进程与城市法在国家法律秩序形成中的历史作用，本文阐释了民族国家（nation-state）曾均质化的法律空间如何分化为国家法与地方（城市）法两大秩序体系，二者各自以独特路径与国际法律进程发生互动。 本文采用城市研究进路，将城市界定为法律关系高度集聚且具备专属法律文化的法律中心，这一界定也为将城市作为独立法律单元开展法律分析提供了理据。与此同时，诸多城市面临立法与城市现实脱节、缺乏适配规范的制度能力的困境，由此催生了广泛的非正规化现象、平行监管体系，以及作为事实性规范的“非正规城市法”。 本文将上述动态与更广泛的国家合法性危机相关联，尤其针对“犯罪型国家”（即侵略性、压迫性、腐败性或失职性国家）——在这类国家中，国家法沦为犯罪治理的装饰性门面，丧失了调解城市社群与公信力尽失的国家机构之间日益加剧的紧张关系的能力。在此情形下，传统上城市专注金融治理、国家专注军事事务的职能划分已难以为继，城市与民族国家间的力量平衡正在发生转变，作者以俄罗斯侵略乌克兰所产生的影响对此予以例证。 基于此，本文将“城市法”概念化为一套规范体系：其塑造城市形态、土地使用、制度架构与财政运行，并在差异化的法律格局中构建城市与国家之间的关系。 本文的核心结论主张，未来的法律发展将愈发依赖于强势城市与有效能的民族国家之间的协商妥协，以及构建能够调和强势地方法律文化与更广泛国家及国际法律秩序的城市法律框架。