LAW 706SEM - Human Rights Cities

This course examines the growing city-based movement to incorporate human rights law, independent oversight practices, and rights-based monitoring methodologies into city charters, city programming, agency operations, and legalized policy frameworks at the municipal level. Pushing back against the idea that human rights are primarily the domain of international advocacy and top-down rule enforcement, we will study prominent bottom-up examples from cities in the United States and globally where human rights-as a set of governance principles, balancing mandates, and accountability methodologies-have been officially adopted as a primary lens and data-based measurement tool for determining how well city policies are, or are not, serving people’s dignity-based needs and promoting social inclusion. We will examine such efforts in the City of Buffalo, and consider the opportunities and challenges faced by advocates in using human rights methodologies at the city level.

Credits: 3