The new urban agenda and human rights cities: Interconnections between the global and the local
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0924051918806721 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
The new urban agenda
and human rights cities:
Interconnections between
the global and the local
Karina Gomes da Silva
University of Graz, Austria
Abstract
As the level of governance closest to the city dwellers, local authorities have been called to play a
protagonist role as implementers of global standards on human rights and sustainable develop-
ment. The New Urban Agenda, a political declaration signed by all UN Member States, sets a
human rights-based approach to policy-making and service delivery as a path towards inclusive and
sustainable urban development. Remarkably, the document acknowledges that local authorities are
responsible for protecting, respecting, fulfilling, and promoting the human rights of the inhabitants.
However, gaps between the aspiring language of international commitments and their concrete
impact on the ground have limited its potential to transform people’s lives. Nevertheless, all over
the world human rights cities have pro-actively set the implementation of human rights as a core
task in the municipality. By establishing practical links and synergies between human rights cities
and the NUA, this paper suggests ways of filling implementation gaps, drawing a promising scenario
for the realisation of both global and local agendas.
Keywords
Human rights cities, new urban agenda, human rights at the local level, multi-level governance,
2030 agenda, sustainable development goals
1. Introduction
‘In the making of human rights, it is the local that translates into global languages the reality of their
aspiration for a just world’, Upendra Baxi.
1
Corresponding author:
Karina Gomes da Silva, University of Graz, Graz, Styria, Austria.
E-mail: kgtuto@gmail.com
1. Upendra Baxi, The Future of Human Rights (Oxford University Press 2002) 101.
Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights
2018, Vol. 36(4) 290–310
ªThe Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0924051918806721
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Bringing human rights home starts with local action. It is on the ground where the impact of human
rights realisation or their violation is felt. From this angle, Papisca has described local authorities
as primary sources of protection of people’s needs as they are closer to the demands emerging from
the grassroots than any other public actor.
2
Consequently, city governments can be seen as having a
duty to deliver ‘where nation states have failed’.
3
Cities bear the primary responsibility for delivering services which are intrinsically connected
to human rights issues. As rule-makers, serv ice providers, employers, and public and private
contractors, local authorities share obligations and accountability for human rights compliance.
4
This vision has been acknowledged by the United Nations Human Rights Council Advisory
Committee, which stressed that local authorities ‘are obliged to comply, within their local com-
petences, with their duties stemming from the international human rights obligations of the State’.
5
In October 2016, heads of States and multiple actors from subnational and local governments,
communities,civil society,academia, and the privatesector gathered in Quito,Ecuador, for the United
Nations Conference on Housingand Sustainable UrbanDevelopment (Habitat III).There they agreed
upon an action-oriented declarationaimed to make us rethink the way we build, manage,and live in
cities, as a guide for sustainable urban development. The New UrbanAgenda (NUA)
6
is the first UN
declarationwhich attributes direct responsibility to local authorities for protecting,fulfilling, respect-
ing, and promoting human rights in all fields of local competence. As a means to localise the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the NUA
leveragesthe role of cities and humansettlements as driversof inclusive and sustainabledevelopment.
With 175 paragraphs, the declaration proposes a new urban paradigm to better address city
planning, financing, development, governance and management, placing inclusion at the centre of
policy-making and service delivery as a means to achieve sustainable development in cities and
human settlements in urban, peri-urban and rural areas. The set of political commitments included
in the NUA aims at ending poverty and hunger, reducing inequalities, promoting inclusive eco-
nomic growth, achieving gender equality, improving human health and well-being, fostering
resilience, and protecting the environment.
The UN urban framework – that is the NUA and the 2030 Agenda combined –reflects a global
trend that is highlighted in particular in SDG 11 (‘Make cities and human settlements inclusive,
safe, resilient and sustainable’). By 2030, 60%of the world’s population will be living in urban
areas.
7
Important elements of the international agenda, including issues such as economic progress,
2. Antonio Papisca, International Law and Human Rights as a Legal Basis for the International Involvement of Local
Governments in Arne Musch, Chris van der Valk, Alexandra Sizoo and Kian Tajbakhsh (eds), City Diplomacy (VNG
International 2008).
3. Barbara Oomen, Martha F. Davis and Michele Grigolo (eds), Global Urban Justice: the rise of human rights cities
(Cambridge University Press 2016) 2.
4. Klaus Starl, ‘Human Rights and the City: Obligations, Commitments and Opportunities. Do Human Rights Cities Make
a Difference for Citizens and Authorities? Two Cases Studies on the Freedom of Expression’ in Barbara Oomen, Martha
F. Davis and Michele Grigolo (eds), Global Urban Justice: the Rise of Human Rights Cities (Cambridge University
Press 2016).
5. Human Rights Council, ‘Role of local government in the promotion and protection of human rights – Final report of the
Human Rights Council Advisory Committee’ (7 August 2015) UN Doc HRC/30/49.
6. United Nations General Assembly, ‘New Urban Agenda’ (23 December 2016) UN Doc A/Res/71/256.
7. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, ‘Culture Urban Future: Global Report on Culture for
Sustainable Urban Development’ (2016) 260 accessed
20 September 2018.
Gomes da Silva 291
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