“International Human Right Cities Conference” organizing within the concept of “Human Rights Cities Project” carried out in cooperation with Union of Turkish World Municipalities (TDBB) and Raoul Wallenberg Institute (RWI) took place in Istanbul on 22-23 November 2018.
In the conference that lasted two days, national and international academicians working on human rights, international human rights experts and representatives of human rights cities participated as key speakers. Human Right Cities Project member municipalities, universities, non-governmental organizations and students joined the conference as participants.
In the first day after the opening speeches, the conference started with Martha Davis’s talk who is a faculty member from Northeastern University on “Localizing Human Rights and Human Rights City Concept”. In the following session, concept of “Human Rights and Sustainable Development Goals” was discussed by Dr. Johanna Alkan Olsson from Lund University and Dr. İlhami Alkan Olsson. In the afternoon sessions, Sylvia Ivanova from European Council Democracy and Good Governance Department and Gülfem Keleş who is the Manager of Foreign Affairs Department of Union of Municipalities of Turkey made a discussion on “Human Rights and International Mechanisms”. In the last session of the first day, the representatives of Vienna and York cities made their speeches with the concept of “Good Practice Examples of Human Right Cities”. In the evening, academicians and city representatives met at the dinner with the participation of TDBB Secretary General Fahri Solak.
In the second day of the conference, “Human Rights Cities Project” carried out cooperatively by TDBB and RWI was presented to the participants. Then, Prof. Dr. Gülay Günlük Şenesen from Istanbul University and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yelda Yücel from Bilgi University shared the indicators of human rights cities which were prepared for the project. In the afternoon session, a workshop was held in which indicators of human right cities and localizing of the indicators was discussed with the participants after that the conference ended.
