Resources

United Nations

• UN Human Rights Office
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights

U.S. Human Rights Network

• U.S. Human Rights Network
• Statement on U.S. Universal Periodic Review of 2015

Human Rights Cities

• Human Rights Cities Around the World
• Ideas from one of the first U.S. Human Rights Cities- Eugene Oregon
• Bringing Human Rights Home: How Local Governments Can Use Human Rights to Advance Policy

Articles

• The Need for an Ethical and Political De-Colonization of Human Rights: A Reflection on International Human Rights Day
• Why we need Rights for Mother Earth
• Report on Human Rights Implications of Fracking Industry
• How International Human Rights Treaties matter: http://www.northeastern.edu/law/pdfs/academics/phrge/davis-aba-1.29.16.pdf

Reports

• Center for Economic and Social Rights--Report on human rights progress (and obstacles) over the past 20 years.
• Amnesty International Netherlands **The Future of Human Rights in an Urban World** this report discusses how the global economy has contributed to more concentration of urban populations, militarization of cities, and new kinds of threats to basic rights such as housing. But cities are also responsible for delivering basic services, and they are led by representatives who most closely represent residents. This study explores opportunities for communities to unite for human rights, considering the Human Rights Cities initiative as an opportunity to make cities the "glocal defenders of human rights."

Selected Human Rights Organizing Resources Resources for fighting white supremacy Toolkits and Organizing Templates

• American Friends Service Committee's Just Us! Human Rights-based curriculum for youth
• Baltimore's United Workers Fair Development Recovery Plan
• European Coalition of Cities Against Racism 10-point action plan
• European Charter for the Safeguarding of Human Rights in the City
• World Charter on the Right to the City
• Mexico City Charter on the Right to the City
• Anti-Racism Toolkit-
• Global Charter Safeguarding Human Rights in the City
• Observatory of the European Charter for Equality of Women and Men in Local Life
• Toolkit for addressing gender equity
• International Coalition of Cities Against Racism
• -This UNESCO initiative brings together international and municipal leaders to share experiences and develop action plans for fighting discrimination in cities.
• The U.S. Coalition of Cities Against Racism and Discrimination was formed in 2013 in Birmingham, Alabama.
• National Economic and Social Rights Initiative two-pager onusing human rights organizing
• National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) Health Care is a Human Right Campaign Collaborative Eugene Oregon Human Rights Commission

• Triple Bottom Line-analysis tool for implementing human rights in city programs

Rights respecting schools program-to advance the Convention on the Rights of the Child ”promote restorative justice, inclusion/diversity, diffusion of human rights principles throughout staff (see also UNICEF-UK Rights Respecting Schools program)

Films
"Dakota 38"-- film on the efforts of Dakota people to resist the erasure of a massacre against Indigenous people by marking its anniversary with a ride from South Dakota to Minnesota. The film is offered as a gift to bring healing through truth-telling.

Human Rights Education

• AFSC Human Rights Curriculum
• Human Rights Educators Association
• Guerilla Guides to Law Teaching (Number 6: Human Rights Law)

Organizations and outreach resources

• PuttingPeople First!Pennsylvania
• National Economic and Social Rights Initiative(NESRI)People's Budget videowith a slideshowpresentation
• National Economic andSocial RightsInitiativeMore than a Roofhousing rights //(40 min.video)//
• FILM: KellyAnderson “My Brooklyn,a perspectiveon ˜gentrification from the viewpoint of displacedresidents.

Research Articles and Reports

• “Unmasking the hidden power of cities”. (LA-A New Economy for All LAANE, Partnership for Working Families, In the Public Interest) June 2018.
• Mac Naughton and McGill, "Economic and Social Rights: Implementation without Ratification"--an article that discusses both the Vermont "Health Care is a Human Right" campaign and the Eugene, Oregon Human Rights City Project.
  
  Open SocietyFoundation research on inclusion, democracy,anti-discrimination in EU Cities:
  

• http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/living-together-projects-promoting-inclusion-11-eu-cities
• http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/projects/home-europe/backgroundhttp://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/muslims-europe-report-11-eu-cities
• http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/free-tags/home-europe-project
• http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/europes-white-working-class-communities-report-six-eu-cities

Fighting White Supremacy
Ending White Supremacy --is hard work. It requires constant effort to re-educate ourselves and our communities. Here are some reflections from anti-racist activists that can help guide our work together.

• This is what white people can do to support #BlackLivesMatter Educate yourselves, put your bodies in the streets and help dismantle white supremacy By SallyKohn August 6
• Calling IN: A Less Disposable Way of Holding Each Other Accountable by Ngọc Loan Trần
• 11 Things White People Can do to Be Real Anti-racist Allies and AccomplicesAlternet
• "How to become an Ally" Excerpt from Becoming an Ally Breaking the Cycle of Oppression by Anne Bishop. Published by Fernwood Publishing, Halifax

Around the Nation & World

• The Human Rights City Alliance is part of the National Network of Human Rights Cities, which connects us to the US Human Rights Network, the leading human rights organization in the U.S. working with grassroots, low-income communities and communities of color who are most affected by the denials of human rights. USHRN connects human rights activists in this country with UN human rights bodies and international movements. Learn more about this work here.
  
  Federal Equality Act introduced in U.S. Congress This bill offers protections against discrimination in housing, federal funding, jury service, legal protections, and credit based on sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity. It also prevents the use of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to defend discrimination against LGBT people.
  
  The United States is currently undergoing the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in the United Nations. As part of this review process, the U.S. Human Rights Network has compiled this report on the state of human rights in the United States: Testimonies of Human Rights at Home: Documenting Injustice in the United States.
  
  International Call for a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth
  
  Call for Action for the Rights of Mother Earth
  

• This is a proposal put forward from the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (held in 2010 in Cochabamba, Bolivia) that urges local and national governments and the United Nations to formally recognize legal rights for the Earth and all its inhabitants.

National & International Campaigns and Initiatives

• A New Poor People's Campaign for Today: The problem of chronic and expanding poverty and social exclusion is a systemic one. Organizations are coming together to press for broad social transformation that will end poverty.
• UN High Commissioner for Human Rights initiates **campaign** to pay tribute to women and men who defy stereotypes and fight for women's human rights--the campaign runs from Human Rights Day, Dec. 10 this year, to International Women's Day, Mar. 8, 2015.#reflect2protect
• International Decade for People of African Descent: 2015-2024
• This country needs a truth commission on violence against African Americans (Yes! Magazine December 2014)

Amnesty International Netherlands: **The Future of Human Rights in an Urban World**--this report discusses how the global economy has contributed to more concentration of urban populations, militarization of cities, and new kinds of threats to basic rights such as housing. But cities are also responsible for delivering basic services, and they are led by representatives who most closely represent residents. This study explores opportunities for communities to unite for human rights, considering the Human Rights Cities initiative as an opportunity to make cities the "glocal defenders of human rights."

Archive

Other meetings

• Pittsburgh's Gender Equity Commission For more information and to join the next meeting, please contact pgh4cedaw@gmail.com.
• Pittsburghers for Public Transit
• Penn Plaza Support and Action Coalition
• Pittsburgh Union of Regional Renters

Pittsburgh

• Pittsburgh edition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Booklet format--PDF)
• Working Draft of An Action Plan for building a Human Rights City (PDF Version)
• Research on Pittsburgh and Human Rights Organizing: Responding to Globalization and Urban Conflict: Human Rights City Initiatives Studies in Social Justice
• Local strategy working paper: Moving from Shallow to Deep Democracy
• Pitt Students work with Homewood residents on new resource website: I Am Homewood--this project reflects what can happen when we create networks among the various residents in our city. The Human Rights City Alliance helped bring creative and energetic folks together to enhance local knowledge and advance human rights advocacy work.
• The Case for Human Rights Today (February 2021)

People-Centered Human Rights: Analyses from Around the Nation and World

• “Unmasking the hidden power of cities”. (LA-A New Economy for All LAANE, Partnership for Working Families, In the Public Interest) June 2018.
• Statement of Principles - National Human Rights City Alliance and People-Centered Human Rights
• Human Rights Recommendations to the United States: A Desk Reference for State and Local Human Rights Agencies
• Resources for State and Local Human Rights Implementation
• Sanctuary Cities: Boston Principles on the Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights of Noncitizens
• Local Initiatives to Counter Violence-Promoting Political Extremism-- This document from the Swedish Association of Local and Regional Authorities was produced following violence at a 1995 white-supremacy concert organized by a growing right-wing movement. Examples of local initiatives can guide work in other communities to counter the exclusionary and hateful messages of such groups.
• Housing is a Human Right: Slideshow on international treaties and opportunities to promote the human right to housing

Dangerous Times: Defending Human Rights

• The Dangerous Rise of Populism: Global Attacks on Human Rights Values: "2017 World Report by Human Rights Watch" reminds us that "Values are fragile. Because the values of human rights depend foremost on the ability to empathize with others and "to recognize the importance of treating others the way we would want to be treated,” they are especially vulnerable to the demagogue's exclusionary appeal. A society's culture of respect for human rights needs regular tending, lest the fears of the moment sweep away the wisdom that built democratic rule."
• Truth-Telling for Reconciliation: Remembering Victims of Slavery & the Slave Trade March 25th is the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
  • Relevant reading
    • The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates
    • Michael Dyson's Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon for White America.
    • UN initiatives to fight racism and xenophobia: Together (respect, safety and dignity for refugees and migrants), Let's Fight Racism", "Stand Up for Someone's Rights Today," and the International Decade for People of African Descent.
• Human Rights in Danger (Youth and public education resource) Human Rights Watch 2017 Report The Dangerous Rise of PopulismGlobal Attacks on Human Rights Values
• Teaching Tolerance: Talking with kids and adults about human rights "Speak up for civility"--Human Rights Educators USA
• Building a society that works for all: This election showed the urgency of people's need for major changes in the basic structure of our economy and government policies. Neither presidential candidate offered that. There is a need to build grassroots movements for economic and social transformation rather than allowing elites to determine what kind of society we live in. "Politicians from both parties lionize the entrepreneur, casting poverty ...as an individual shortcoming, a narrative that erases ...the structurally racist policies that have continued to maintain [white privilege]."
• See examples of legislation passed in Human Rights Cities of Washington DC and Eugene Oregon's Inclusive Community Resolution.
• Discussion Guideto Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian prepared for use around Indigenous Peoples Day 2017, but this resource can be used anytime to facilitate discussion and dialogue around themes of institutionalized racism, internalized oppression, and the historical and contemporary experiences of Indigenous communities and other communities of color in the United States.