The 2022 ESIL Collaborative Book Prize was awarded in September 2022 during the 17th ESIL Annual Conference in Utrecht to Helmut Philip Aust and Janne E. Nijman for their book Research Handbook on International Law and Cities (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021).

Jury’s decision (partial):

Research Handbooks tend to be just that – a book for reading selected contents one is interested in. Not this Handbook – it is fascinating from the beginning to end. „Research Handbook of International Law and Cities”, edited by Helmut Philip Aust and Janne E. Nijman, is an innovative collaborative work because it draws light at the growing importance of cities in international legal frameworks. Traditionally, cities have had relatively little to do with international law as the law of nations was constructed around the nation state and its sovereignty. The book invites us to rethink this proposition as it demonstrates how cities have become active in areas traditionally thought to be relating to international law. It thus raises awareness of a blind spot in international law, filling a research gap – adding more actors to the multiplicity of actors relevant in international law. […]
Overall, the book impresses with the range of its perspectives, it accommodates 35 different chapters from a group of scholars who can be called diverse and also illustrate the value of best edited books which are together stronger and richer than each constitutive part would be alone. In this sense, the volume is thought-provoking in the best sense of the word. It does push the reader to think about international law differently than before since the underlying phenomena and questions of the book are so interesting and the role of cities is convincingly and holistically set out.