Frauke Materlik and Erhard Paul Meier (D) start their research. The main keywords for the research period in The Hague are ‘power structures’ and ‘negotiations of and within space’. Jurisdiction on water and property reaches back to the very beginning of the historical discourses of law. The city of Den Haag is home to many globally important institutions of law such as The International Court of Justice. It dealt e.g. in 2013 with questions of alleged violations of Sovereign Rights and Maritime Spaces, obligations to negotiate access to Oceans as well as disputes concerning maritime delimitation along the seas. We wonder: How is the water edge negotiated? We want to gain an understanding on how the legal strata of new land development and coastal jurisdiction on a global scale might also be conveyed on the local scale. Researching the thesis that international jurisprudence can be made visible in the daily routines and lifes of urban citizens, we aim to rethink the public space and sphere as a paradox between the natural law of hospitality and the territorial law of sovereignity.
