26^th Session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities – 25 to 27 March 2014

Debate on best practices of implementation of human rights at local and regional level in member states of the Council of Europe and other countries

Statement by Lars O. Molin (Sweden, EPP/CCE), Rapporteur on human rights

25.03.2014

Colleagues, this is the third report I am presenting to our Committee as Congress Rapporteur on Human Rights. In the first report, we spoke of our role as elected representatives in protecting and promoting human rights at local level. In the second report we discussed what methods and tools to use to tackle this question. Today we will talk about what local authorities are actually doing on the ground in their countries.

Before we do that, I want to look at the history of our activity on this issue.  I want to do this to remind ourselves that this is a subject in which we have put a lot of time and effort.

Let us go back to 2007. Some of you will remember that we organised a Forum for the Future of Democracy in Sweden that year. There we underlined the interdependence of democracy and human rights.

Then in 2008 the Congress issued a joint declaration with the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights – you will remember Thomas Hammarberg who was always very keen on the local government aspect of human rights. He was also a  good friend and supporter of the Congress.

So, in that declaration we underlined the need to develop an approach focused on human rights at local and regional level, because good governance goes hand in hand with respect for human rights.

By 2010, the groundwork was done and we were ready to tackle the question more politically.  We adopted Resolution 296 and Recommendation 280 in 2010 on the role of elected representatives in raising awareness on human rights at local level. Since then all our activities have been in this framework.

It is no coincidence that this concrete step was taken at the same time as the reform of the Congress in 2010. The reform’s aim was to concentrate on the core values democracy, human rights and rule of law and this encouraged our initiative.

Then came our first report on “The Role of Local and Regional Authorities in implementation of Human Rights”.  Our premise was clear: Governments and national parliaments may ratify international treaties on behalf of the state, but the day-to-day work of implementing human rights often rests on the shoulders of local and regional authorities.

Because they stand first in line in delivery of services to the citizens, the local authorities must be aware of citizens’ rights. In our resolution we talked about awareness-raising campaigns, local action plans, independent complaint mechanisms and training of local politicians and their staff.

The question then was: How do we do it? Human rights is a vast subject, it touches on nearly everything. In fact, it can be overwhelming. How should we approach it?

Our second report, which we adopted in 2011, was called “Developing indicators to raise awareness of human rights at local and regional level”. There we proposed guidelines - we developed indicators which are suitable for the local and regional authorities to use in order to measure the appropriateness of the rights they select to work with and the utility and impact of their actions.

Today, once again we are ready to go one step further. The third report on human rights you have before you is called “Human Rights implementation good practices at local level”.

It starts on the following basic premise: Good governance isen a key concept for the Congress in improving local democracy in member States, and it is impossible to conceive of good governance without respect for human rights. 

It asks the following question: How can we develop the link between the legal responsibilities of local and regional authorities and the everyday implementation of human rights. 

The answer lies in information exchange on concrete solutions. If human rights must be respected, protected, implemented and promoted at the local level, then local elected representatives and their administrative staff must be aware of this responsibility.  To raise awareness and to develop good projects, they must know what other local representatives are doing. An exchange of good practices is essential.

What do we mean by good practices?  We simply mean practices that have been tried and shown to work in efficiently in some way and therefore can be used to influence practice elsewhere.  The report gives examples that exist in different countries.

It also asks how we can improve, and do more and better, to carry out these responsibilities. The report deals with a diverse list of questions. These range from establishing independent ombudsman officesand human rights training for the police force, to action against child labourand domestic violence, ensuring education for alland improving mental health care.

For your information, this report was sent to Commissioner Muiznieks’s office for comments and I would like to thank him here for their replies. I am happy to say that their evaluation is positive and I am grateful for their suggestions for improvement.  The monitoring Committee adopted the report at its meeting on 19 February.

Colleagues, now I come to our draft Resolution. You will find an introductory part that briefly recalls the background of our human rights approach and work.

Then comes the part where we encourage all the local and regional authorities in our member States to exchange good practices in the area of human rights at local and regional level. 

But I propose not to limit ourselves to member States only.  Some of you may remember that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution in 2013 about the participation of non-member States in Council of Europe Conventions and develop cooperation.

I think we can use this as a guideline and already include non-Member States in our invitation to exchange good practices. The first countries that come to mind are Tunisia and Morocco, where we have already established contacts.

The third part is where the Congress calls on the Monitoring Committee to make use of the opportunity provided by monitoring visits to meet both local elected representatives and their staff and to promote our human rights approach. As you know, we are going to prepare what we called a five-yearly report on main issues in human rights practices in member States in about two years’ time. We propose also that the Monitoring Committee should also continue to strengthen its cooperation with other bodies of the Council of Europe and the Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union.

Finally, we say what we are going to do in the future: Organise a human rights forum with the participation of elected local and regional representatives, experts and other stakeholders at regular intervals, for example every two or three years, to exchange information and good practices.

If we can manage to make this a regular, well-attended and well-publicised forum, it would be an interesting foil to the world democracy forum, a useful contribution to one of Council of Europe’s core objectives and raise our visibility as a whole.

Colleagues, I ask you to adopt this draft resolution.

Thank you for your attention.