The 2013 World Human Rights Cities Forum (WHRCF) is an annual meeting of key stakeholders engaged in building a human rights city as a follow-up to two previous forums held in 2011 and 2012 in order to implement the vision of a human rights city as articulated in the Gwangju Declaration on Human Rights City adopted on 17 May 2011 at the first WHRCF.
Under the theme “Sustainable Human Rights City for All: Guiding Principles for a Human Rights City”, it aims to address the emerging challenges identified by key actors including mayors, civil servants, policy makers, local councillors, civil society actors, academics and other stakeholders in the process of making a human rights city a reality on the grounds of their own context with a special focus on effective institution building and mechanisms including guiding principles for a human rights city based on the sharing and analysis of various experiences and good practices.
The 2013 WHRCF is organized by the Metropolitan City of Gwangju in cooperation with the May 18 Memorial Foundation and Korea Human Rights Foundation under the guidance of the WHRCF Promotion Committee composed of the May 18 Memorial Foundation, May 18 Institute with the support of co-sponsors such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT), Ministry of Justice, National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK), Korea National Commission for UNESCO and Asia Pacific Center for Education for International Understanding (APCEIU), and the Gwangju Metropolitan Office of Education.
Approximately, several hundred participants mainly composed of representatives from ‘human rights cities’, UN human rights experts, civic and human rights NGOs, local parliamentarians, as well as academics both from Korea and abroad are expected to take part in the 2013 Forum to share their rich experiences and expertise on various aspects of human rights city.
A number of UN human rights experts and members of the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee (HRCAC) are invited to attend as they are expected to work on the research paper on ‘local government and human rights’ as decided by the UN Human Rights Council in September 2012 which will include the Guiding Principles for a Human Rights City.
Mayors and representatives of cities that have accepted the ‘Global Charter-Agenda for Human Rights in the City” adopted in Florence, Italy on 11 December 2011 at the Governing Council of the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) as an agenda for action as well as members of the UNESCO International Coalition of Cities Against Discrimination are also invited to join the 2013 WHRCF.
Source: Gwangju Metropolitan City