Global Human Rights Implementation

If you need any more evidence that cities are staking out a leadership role in “bringing human rights home” in the United States and elsewhere, check out the op ed by New York City’s first lady, Chirlane McCray, in The Guardian earlier this week.  Writing on the occasion of the Beijing + 20 gathering at the United Nations, McCray takes special note of the role of women, arguing New York City is “making good” on the promises made at the Beijing Women’s Conference by expanding universal pre-kindergarten, providing greater access to sick leave, participating in the UN Safe Cities Global Initiative, and appointing high numbers of women in leadership positions.  McCray also highlights other cities around the world that are addressing women’s human rights, including Cairo, San Francisco and Vienna. 

San Francisco is a case in point.  As the first city in the U.S. to adopt CEDAW as municipal law, San Francisco has also launched the Cities for CEDAW campaign.  The website of the San Francisco Department of Women provides a host of tools to assist advocates in mounting similar campaigns in their localities, including a template for drafting a law or resolution, guides on how to conduct a gender analysis of city agencies, and fact sheets on San Francisco’s law.  Indeed, the Mayor of San Francisco, Edwin Lee, has endorsed the Cities for CEDAW campaign and calls on his “mayoral colleagues” across the nation to participate.  Meanwhile, of course, CEDAW ratification languishes on the national stage.

Importantly, New York and San Francisco are part of a larger global movement which encompasses an array of city-level human rights initiatives, including the human rights cities movement.  On May 15-18, in Gwangju, Korea, the World Human Rights City Forum will hold its fifth annual gathering under the theme “Towards a Global Alliance of  Human Rights Cities for All, Part 2.”  For more information on the event, click here.