Vienna “Human Rights City” – Process Consulting

Research Topic & Roadmap

Since 2013, the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights (LBI-GMR) has been involved in the process of Vienna becoming a City of Human Rights.

After the declaration “Vienna – City of Human Rights” was adopted by the City Council at the end of 2014, the Vienna Human Rights Office was opened in September 2015. Shams Asadi was appointed Human Rights Officer of the City of Vienna.

As a first step, the Declaration defined the City of Vienna’s commitment to a policy based on human rights and created framework conditions for its implementation. On this basis, cornerstones for a plan of action were defined in 2015. Experts from the LBI-GMR identified the areas of participation, social inclusion and distributive justice, police and security policy as well as education as fields of action on which implementation should focus in the coming years.

Since 2016, the LBI-GMR has been supporting the Human Rights Office in the development and concretisation of individual measures in the above-mentioned policy areas with the participation of stakeholders from the city administration and civil society.

Research Focus

In 2016, the focus was on children’s rights and safety in public spaces. The work in these two areas was continued and the areas of human trafficking and housing as a human right were added.

Previous process results in which the LBI-GMR was directly involved:

• The study “Vienna – City of Human Rights” by Manfred Nowak supported by a number of LBI-GMR experts, 2012/13
• The declaration “Vienna – City of Human Rights”
• The conference “Human Rights in the City: A City for All”, 10 December 2014, organised by the LBI-GMR with the Research Centre Human Rights
• An analysis of the structure and capacities of the Viennese Contact Point Combatting Discrimination
• Outline Action Plan Human Rights in Vienna
• Summary of recommendations elaborated by the participants in round tables on different aspects of children’s rights and trafficking in human beings as well as policy papers on safety and human rights and housing as a human right

Research Method

The experts of the LBI-GMR assist the Human Rights Office of the City of Vienna in the elaboration and concretisation of numerous measures.