Contributing to make the voice of local governments heard in regards to human rights has been a key priority for member-local governments of the UCLG Committee on Social Inclusion, Participatory Democracy and Human Rights since 2005. The continuous efforts at the organization of the World Human Rights Cities Forum (WHRCF), the close articulation with the international campaign for the Right to Housing “The Shift”, or the advocacy strategy led at the Human Rights Council since 2015 are good examples of Committee members engagement to support the recognition of the local sphere in the global promotion and defense of human rights.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), an institution charged with promoting and protecting human rights within the framework of the United Nations with whom we regularly collaborate, has launched a call for contributions for a report to be released on July 2019. This call is aimed particularly at local government representatives and seeks to identify “effective methods to foster cooperation between local governments and local stakeholders for the effective promotion and protection of human rights (…) and to indicate the major challenges and best practices in this regard”.
The publication of this report should be seen as a specific outcome of September’s Human Rights Council Resolution 39/7 on Local Government and Human Rights, which underlined how “the expertise and knowledge of local government officials are an important asset in the provision of public services and the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms”. The resolution equally encourages the interaction between Sustainable Development Goals and human rights localization agendas.
[ You can find more information on this subject on our last communiqué on the subject ]
You will find below four thematic guidelines for sending contributions to this report:
- Laws, policies and programmes that have been explicitly developed by local authorities to promote and protect human rights;
- Effective methods to foster cooperation between local government and local stakeholders for the promotion and protection of human rights;
- Ways in which local governments raise awareness about, and contribute, to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda, including by ensuring participation by local stakeholders;
- Ways in which local governments are connected with the UN human rights system, for example, by participation in the Universal Periodic Review and the work of human rights treaty bodies and Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, and the implementation of their recommendations.
The CSIPDHR Secretariat remains at your full disposal for any clarification or support you might need concerning the sending of contributions, and actively invites interested local authorities to participate in this process.
[ Find the proposed guidelines for contributions by our Committee's Secretariat ]
Contributions should be sent in their final form by February 15, 2019 to [email protected] (putting [email protected] and [email protected] in copy).