B7 - en/fr

Topical issue ‘The political and legal framework for city diplomacy: why some governments welcome city diplomacy and others don’t’

A very first aspect that comes to mind when thinking about an increased role for local governments in conflict prevention, peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction is the level of autonomy that local governments have to be internationally active. For example: are local governments in a certain country allowed to assist fellow local governments in other countries, or even form partnerships with them? Or: do national governments actually allow conflict affected local governments to receive assistance from their counterparts abroad? The answers to such questions differ enormously from one country to another. It is therefore useful to analyse the international legal and political frameworks and to see which shared principals and standards they define for the degree of autonomy for local governments in international co-operation.

In this session some of the most important and relevant international legal and political frameworks will be presented by speakers who have played or still play a leading role in the development or implementation of these frameworks. An important one is the European Charter on Local Self-Government, established by the Council of Europe in 1985 and since ratified by almost all European countries. The Charter specifically gives local authorities the right to form partnerships with local authorities in other countries (article 10). Since 1996 attempts have been made to come to a World Charter on Local Self-Government as well. Moreover, and linked to that, the Governing Council of UN-Habitat in April 2007 approved the “Guidelines on Decentralisation and Strengthening of Local Authorities”. Finally, the relevancy of recent developments within the EU-system - such as the draft EU-Constitution (now called Treaty of Lisbon) and the 2006 EU-Regulation on a European grouping of territorial cooperation (EGTC) – as well as the development of human rights and the ‘responsibility to protect’ will be reviewed by the various speakers. The moderator will subsequently guide the discussion, especially linking formal legal notions with the every day political realities.

 

Moderator

Elisabeth Gateau, Secretary General of UCLG

 

Speakers
Keith Whitmore, Member of the Manchester Metropolitan City Council, President of the Institutional Committee of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe

Antonio Papisca, Professor of International Relations and International Protection of Human Rights at the University of Padua (Italy)

 

Heinrich Hoffschulte, District-Councillor in Münster (Germany) and the CEMR Official Representative on the United Nations Advisory Committee of Local Authorities (UNACLA)