ABSTRACT
This chapter explores different initiatives around human rights and cities. It emphasises the variety of agents involved in the co-production of human rights in cities, local governments included; an expanding focus from civil rights to a broader set of human rights; and, finally, the emergence of the city as an element around which human rights are centred. The first part discusses US civil rights cities, understood as early instances of human rights cities. The second part focusses on a new generation of US human rights cities which, unlike civil rights cities, engage more closely with international human rights. The third part discusses city charters of human rights, a strand of the practice originated in European cities where the engagement of local governments in human rights has been more proactive and an urban perspective on rights more explicitly articulated. The story of the European Charter for Safeguarding Human Rights in the City is told here as well, because it provided the blueprint for following charter and because it is a key document to understand the engagement of Barcelona in human rights. In the fourth part, I reflect briefly on the more global diffusion of the idea of the human rights city.
