A Human Rights City is a municipality that refers explicitly to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards and/or law in their policies, statements, and programs. Analysts have observed growing numbers of such cities since 2000... The Human Rights City initiative emerged from the global human rights movement, and it reflects efforts of activist groups to improve respect for human rights principles by governments and other powerful actors who operate at the local/community level. Because of their focus on local contexts, Human Rights Cities tend to emphasize economic, social, and cultural rights as they affect the lives of residents of cities and other communities and their ability to enjoy civil and political human rights.
Contents
- History of human rights cities
- Cities and international law
- Current human rights cities
- Africa
- Asia
- Europe
- North America
- South America
- References
Human rights advocates describe a Human Rights City as “One whose residents and local authorities, through learning about the relevance of human rights to their daily lives (guided by a steering committee), join in ongoing learning, discussions, systematic analysis and critical thinking at the community level, to pursue a creative exchange of ideas and the joint planning of actions to realize their economic, social, political, civil and cultural human rights.” Human rights cities were defined at the 2011 World Human Rights Cities Forum as "both a local community and a socio-political process in a local context where human rights play a key role as fundamental values and guiding principles." This framework has generated various practices in different cities.
History of human rights cities
The Human Rights City initiative is the result of long-standing efforts of popular groups to defend and promote human rights, and thus represents an aspect of global human rights struggles.
Contemporary human rights city initiatives grow directly from earlier organizing around rights claims in urban settings. The widespread nature of urban problems affecting peoples’ everyday lives and survival have generated similar types of responses in places around the world, helping account for the simultaneous emergence and consolidation of popular claims to the “right to the city." According to David Harvey, “to invoke rights to the city means ‘to claim some kind of shaping power over the processes of urbanization, over the ways in which our cities are made and remade and to do so in a fundamental and radical way’."
Ideas inspiring this movement first emerged in the 1970s, with many influenced by Henri Lefebvre’s 1968 book, Le Droit à la ville. The movement has expanded and gained momentum around the world since the mid-1990s. The proliferation of global financial crises, urban austerity, and environmental damage has contributed to the rise of a growing number of cities around the world that are referring more explicitly to international human rights in their policies, statements, and programs.
The formally named “Human Rights Cities” initiative was launched by the People’s Movement for Human Rights Learning (PDHRE), which was formerly known as People’s Decade for Human Rights Education, in the wake of the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, Austria. The initiative aims to mobilize people in communities to “pursue a community-wide dialogue and to launch actions to improve the life and security of women, men and children based on human rights norms and standards.” This approach is different from the traditional way that human rights are enforced and applied because of its emphasis on popular education, engagement, and culture as a necessary complement to government enforcement.
Human Rights Cities have grown in part because of the enhanced efforts by international agencies like UN Habitat to connect international legal regimes with municipal programs. As a result of globalized economic development processes, cities around the world are facing a similar host of urban problems, including a lack of affordable housing, traffic congestion and insufficient public services. Cities have looked to international forums like the UN Conferences on Human Settlements and the World Associations of Cities and Local Authorities to help address these problems. Shulamith Koning, founder of the People’s Movement for Human Rights Learning (PDHRE), worked closely with human rights organizers in some of the first formally designated human rights cities, including Rosario Argentina, which became the first Human Rights City in the world in 1997 and the first U.S.-based Human Rights City of Washington, D.C.
Human rights organizers in United States face particular challenges due to the role of the U.S. in the world and to the U.S. failure to ratify most major international human rights treaties. However, in the 2000s, more U.S.-based activists have been working to raise international awareness of U.S. human rights violations, including racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, economic human rights violations, and the rights of children.
In 2014 residents of Detroit who were losing access to clean water brought their case to the United Nations, which sent a Special Rapporteur to the city and issued a statement condemning practices that inhibited residents’ right to water. This issue and others have encouraged more U.S. cities, including Baltimore Maryland, Mountain View California, Columbia South Carolina, to consider the human rights city model.
Cities and international law
All international human rights law is based in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted in 1948. This document outlines the inalienable and fundamental rights of humankind that are protected regardless of gender, race, class, sexual orientation, religion, or any other social, economic, or political factor. The articles in the UDHR are not legally binding, but they are recognized as part of customary international law, and they authorize the development of binding international treaties, which countries may choose to sign and ratify. International human rights treaties and monitoring processes, however, privileges national governments and limits the role of local officials, whose cooperation in the implementation of international law is critical. The day-to-day work of implementing human rights standards often rests on the shoulders of local and regional authorities. They too are bound by these agreements. Local and regional authorities are often directly responsible for services related to health care, education, housing, water supply, environment, policing and also, in many cases, taxation.
How cities implement human rights ideals varies from city to city. This allows for each city to develop a plan that is specific to its capacities, needs, problems, and concerns. Formally designated “Human Rights Cities” typically create a leadership body made up of community activists, residents, and public officials (or their appointees) working in partnership. Other cities may adopt human rights language and standards without officially adopting the name of Human Rights City. For instance, Barcelona is a leading human right city in Europe, and it created an Office of Non-Discrimination to implement the EU anti-racial discrimination policy within its borders as part of becoming a Human Rights City.
San Francisco is another such example, since its 1998 adoption of a city ordinance reflecting the principles of the Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women. The San Francisco example has helped shape work by activists organizing a “Cities for CEDAW” campaign to convince cities around the United States to implement the CEDAW convention despite the failure of the national government to ratify the treaty.
Work by international human rights activists and by policymakers in the United Nations has helped spread ideas about how city governments can improve human rights implementation. In 2004, UNESCO helped establish the International Coalition of Cities against Racism to help municipal leaders exchange ideas and improve policies to fight racism, discrimination, xenophobia and exclusion. The European Coalition of Cities against Racism (ECCAR) grew out of that effort, and it now has more than 104 municipalities in its membership and has adopted a ten-point action plan
As the ECCAR example illustrates, city officials themselves are increasingly mobilizing across borders around human rights agendas. For instance, the European Conference of Cities for Human Rights was formed in 1998 on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At its second convening in 2000, it adopted the European Charter for the Safeguarding of Human Rights in the City, which has been signed by more than 400 cities.
The United Cities and Local Government’s Forum of Local Authorities has convened local authorities alongside the World Social Forum since 2001, debating a draft text of a Global Charter-Agenda for Human Rights in the City
Current human rights cities
The following cities have been formally designated as Human Rights Cities: