Human Rights Go Local: Mobilising the potential of human rights cities in Europe Professor Gerd Oberleitner, University of Graz
Event details
York Human Rights City Network annual event
Human Rights Go Local
York has been a Human Rights City for just six years but others have been operating for up to 25 years. What have been their successes and setbacks? Have they sustained and mobilised their potential? Have they become influential stakeholders in the international human rights system? Are they positioning themselves as innovative laboratories for social change in times of multiple crises? In the 75th year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, have human rights cities given meaning to the idea expressed by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1948 that human rights have to be relevant to the everyday lives of people? What can York learn from the European and global networks of human rights cities?
About the speaker
Gerd Oberleitner will speak to these questions drawing on his experience of Graz, Europe's first Human Rights City, and the wider networks. Gerd is UNESCO Chair in Human Rights and Human Security, Professor of International Law, and Director of the European Training and Research Centre for Human Rights and Democracy at the University of Graz. He is also the co-Director of the International Centre for the Protection of Human Rights at the Local and Regional Levels under the auspices of UNESCO in Graz. He teaches in the Global Campus of Human Rights and is co-editor of the publication series Human Rights Go Local.