Human Rights and Local Government
The Advisory Committee (AC) of the UN Human Rights Council has proposed to undertake a study of local government and human rights in light of recent developments in the movement of cities and civil society to promote the “right to the city” and “the human rights city” as concepts of local governance. Following this initiative of civil society, the AC acknowledges the challenging urban context to realize the ideal that human rights apply to “every individual and every organ of the society,” as provided in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
While upholding human rights norms and obligations is the responsibility of the central state, its institutions include civil servants and authorities at every administrative level.
In a statement supporting this study, Habitat International Coalition has reminded that “implementing the bundle of human rights and obligations to respect, protect and fulfill them are inevitably local tasks.”
The proposed AC study would coincide with the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) reporting regulations to states parties to the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to take steps “to ensure coordination between ministries and regional and local authorities, in order to reconcile related policies (economics, agriculture, environment, energy, etc.) with the obligations under article 11 of the Covenant,” in particular the human right to adequate housing.
The General Comment on the right to food stresses how responsibilities at multiple levels are essential to realizing that right. While “the State should provide an environment that facilitates implementation of these responsibilities,” increasingly local measures are needed to ensure food security and food sovereignty. In recent years, numerous good practices and policy models exemplify the pivotal role of local decision making and preparedness to ensure the right to food.
The Harmonized Guidelines on Reporting to the Treaty Bodies [Arabic] (para. 50) advises states to involve local governmental departments at the central, regional and local levels. This integration of central and local government performance is essential, too, to realize the human right to water and sanitation. The UN Independent Expert on the right to water and sanitation Catarina de Albuquerque has reported on a wealth of examples of good practice in which a State’s holistic approach involves local government monitoring and implementation of the right.
CESCR has observed that “violations of the rights…can occur through the direct action of, failure to act, or omission by States parties, or through their institutions or agencies at the national and local levels” (General Comment No. 16, para. 42). Indeed, the gross violation of the right to adequate housing through forced eviction is often perpetrated by local authorities.
The AC’s proposal for the study on the human rights dimensions of local government comes at a time that coincides with other ongoing preparations and processes at the international level that apply human rights obligations through local authorities. These include the World Urban Forum (Medellin, 5–11 April 2014), the current UN Habitat evaluation, the development/humanitarian relief/human rights discourse on urban displacement, implementation of the Kampala Convention (in African cities), UNESCO work on Migrants and the Right to the City, implementation of the UCLG/UCGL Charter Agenda on Human Rights in the City, Global Observatory on Local Democracy and Decentralization (GOLD) III, the Vienna+20 and proposed Vienna+25 processes (culminating in 2018), the ongoing International Union of Architects/UNESCO revision of principles of Architectural Education, development of the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, Habitat III (scheduled for 2016), the current UN Habitat evaluation, as well as the ongoing human rights reviews of states before the treaty bodies and UPR.
The AC is to take up the human rights dimensions of local government at its current 11th session (12–16 August 2013). AC expert Ms. Chung Chinsung (South Korea) is the contact person and leader of this new initiative. Those with contributions to the study may contact the AC by email at: HRCAdvisoryCommittee@ohchr.org.
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