Maramureş

The County Council of Maramureş is a county level administrative unit that supports and coordinates the activity of 76 local administrative units (municipalities) covering a wide range of public services, having a transversal role in society and acting as a bridge between central administration/government and local administration. Our institution makes constant efforts to improve public services, most of which, given their specificity, fall within the scope of human rights. In this sense, It is worth mentioning that the Maramureş County Council through its institutional activity and subordinate institutions ensures citizens access to second (economic, social and cultural rights) and third generation human rights (collective rights, the right to economic and social development, the right to a healthy environment, the right to participate in cultural heritage, rights to intergenerational equity and sustainability, etc.) while fostering respect of first generation human rights both internally and externally throughout the county. 

Human Rights set the foundation of any democratic society and the local and regional governments of any democratic state cannot dissociate their activity from the necessity of having human rights as a milestone of decision-making. The importance of local and regional governments for the promotion, fulfillment and respect of human rights derives from the fact that they are positioned closer to the people, have a more thorough grasp of community dynamics and are more involved in the current day social matters of the people that live within the boundaries of their jurisdiction. Ideally the final goal of all forms of government should converge in assuring the respect of all acknowledged human rights while staying vigilant to the need of additional advances of the field. Being a social product that responds to the necessity of advocating a standard of human dignity that is in continuous evolution, human rights develop alongside societies. Hence, local and regional governments find themselves in the privileged position of being able to pick up on emergent social tendencies and needs as a result of dealing with more specific phenomena and of the possibility to follow up on the effects of various legislative initiatives upon their population, thus having the capacity to empirically assess the success ratio of political agendas and identify unfolding patterns. Such form of participant observation can lead to important advances in human rights if the conclusions drawn from the analysis of the social dynamics of each administrative unit were diligently summarized and reported bottom-up, finding their way back to international human rights forums. This is one of the aspects we expect to achieve by joining this global campaign. It is not just about wanting to learn from the experience of others in an international environment, spot the gaps in our current practice of human rights and find remedy to potential shortcomings but also about contributing to the promotion of human rights globally and supporting future advances of the field. 

In terms of the meaningfulness of human rights values and usefulness of the human rights framework in guiding our actions, the rationale is pretty much self-explanatory. An ex-communist country such as Romania still preserves the memory of totalitarianism consequently thoroughly understanding the value of self-determination convergent in the right to life, equality before the law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, property rights, the right to as fair trial and voting rights, etc. and thus having human rights as a backbone of county administration is undoubtedly a valid starting point for approaching local action. 

However, that is not enough. Initiatives such as this campaign that allows global realities to come together to think about the challenges of today and tomorrow are a must if wanting to stay loyal to the need of advancing human rights alongside social evolution. We might have started the human rights quest with the right to life but due to social developments several countries around the globe will soon have to deal with the right to death brought about by the phenomenon of dysthanasia or other reflection themes tackled by Bioethics. The great advantage of local and regional governments is being able to observe the interaction between various fields such as economy, heritage, culture, education, tourism, social services, welfare, etc. and understand their mutual interdependencies, especially if approached against the background of human rights.