30th Human Rights Council – Side Event
Local Government and Human Rights
– The Role of Local Government in the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights
(Geneva, Sept 19) – On the occasion of the 30th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council ( UNHRC) in Geneva, the final Report on the Role of local government in the promotion and protection of human rights will be presented and the side event on this Report was organized by the Republic of Korea on September 18. The side event on “Local Government and Human Rights” was to present the final report, to discuss the main findings and recommendations from the report and to identify future challenges and tasks such as building guiding principles on this matter. On this side event, the presentations by Anselmo Lee, co-convener of Asia Democracy Network (ADN) and by Mugiyanto, senior program officer of International Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID) provided overview of current trends and challenges each in Korea and Indonesia. The side event was attended by Ambassador Choi Seokyoung of Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea, Ambassador Adrian Vierita of Permanent Representative of Romania, and Bahram Ghazi of OHCHR in addition to approximately 40 participants from country representatives of Indonesia, Austria, Israel, Switzerland, and Netherlands to representatives of NGOs.
As one of the Sustainable Development Goals, goal 11, aspires to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, ADN acknowledges the important role of the local government in implementing both international and national strategies into practical actions at local level. To achieve a decent human rights city with a transparent local government, there needs to be more engagement with civil society actors and citizens themselves. In this light, ADN seeks more partnership in developing this agenda to localize human rights and democracy in Asia.
Click here to download the concept note of side event on Local Government and Human Rights – UNHRC-30 Side-event Concept Note
Click here to download presentations by a number of speakers from the side event.
* Anselmo Lee on Human Rights City in the Republic of Korea – Trends and Challenges
* Mugiyanto on Human Rights City in Indonesia – Trends and Challenges
* Magali Fricaudet, Coordinator of United Cities and Local Government (UCLG), on “How can international cities network strengthen human rights cities?”
Asia Democracy Network (ADN) is a civil society led multi-stakeholders’ platform among democracy advocates and human rights defenders dedicated to the strengthening of democracy and human rights. ADN is a collaborative effort among CSOs engaged in democracy, human rights and development at the different levels of global, regional, national and local to enhance the synergetic effects of the joint advocacy of CSOs in the Asia region. ADN was founded in Seoul, Korea in Oct. 2013.
