Vienna Human Rights City – Expert Consulting 2024/25

Research Topic & Roadmap

In 2014, the City of Vienna committed itself to policies and actions based on human rights by adopting the declaration “Vienna – City of Human Rights”. Subsequently, the Vienna Human Rights Office was established in 2015. Since then, it has coordinated the cross-cutting issue of human rights and made the city’s commitment visible to the public. Since 2020, the Human Rights Office has also supported the districts of Vienna in contextualizing their activities in the field of human rights.

The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights (LBI-GMR) has been involved in the process since 2013. Together with stakeholders from the city administration and civil society, it supports the City of Vienna on an ongoing basis in the development and specification of individual measures.

The tenth anniversary of the Declaration and the Human Rights Office will be celebrated in 2024 and 2025 respectively. The LBI-GMR has been commissioned to provide specialist support for the anniversary years, starting in June 2024.

Research focus

The expert consulting for the years 2024 and 2025 includes, among other things:

• Support with strategy development
• Ongoing monitoring of key content areas and drafting of future focus areas
• Writing the 2020-2023 activity report and an anniversary edition for 2024-2025
• Supporting the conceptual design of the anniversary events
• Providing the groundwork for the continuation of the “Vienna Human Rights Districts” project

Research Method

The experts of the LBI-GMR support the Human Rights Office of the City of Vienna in the development and implementation of numerous measures.

The LBI-GMR is committed to the principles of the human rights-based approach, which is grounded in the principles of non-discrimination and participation, among others, in its advisory as well as in its implementation activities. At the same time, the human rights-based approach is to be linked to the “FRA Framework for Human Rights Cities” and greater attention is to be paid to the implementation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union at city and district level.

Information on the previous project can be found here.