Celebrating the Growing Ranks of Human Rights Cities

Kudos to the York Human Rights City Network!  On Monday, April 24,  the Lord Mayor of York, United Kingdom, announced that the city is formally joining the ranks of Human Rights Cities worldwide.  York’s Human Rights City Network has long been active in coordinating local human rights dialogues and initiatives, including developing a set of local human rights indicators, but this formal announcement was a new step.  York is the first Human Rights City in the United Kingdom.

According to the York announcement, “the aim is to improve five key aspects of life in York — equality and non-discrimination, housing, health and social care, education and a decent standard of living.”  The intention is that York will use the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a reference point for all city activities and policies.  There are a number of other Human Rights Cities throughout Europe, including Barcelona, Utrecht, and Graz.  Interestingly, underscoring the opportunities for further collaboration and networking among Human Rights Cities, Councillor Thomas Rajakovics of Graz, Austria, attended Monday’s ceremony in York.

For more background on the global and domestic Human Rights Cities movement, see our May 26, 2016 blog.

For more specific background on York’s initiative, see the chapters on York in Global Urban Justice: The Rise of Human Rights Cities (Cambridge 2016) and in Human Rights Cities: Motivations, Mechanisms and Implications (UCR 2013).

And keep on the lookout for a new book by sociologist Michele Grigolo, to be published later this year:  The Human Rights City: New York, San Francisco, Barcelona forthcoming 2017).