Global Urban Justice

Barbara Oomen holds a Chair in the Sociology of Rights at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She is also Dean of University College Roosevelt, a liberal arts and sciences college in Middelburg. Martha F. Davis is a professor at the School of Law, Northeastern University, Boston, where she also serves as co-director of the Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy and as faculty director of the NuLawLab. Michele Grigolo is a lecturer in sociology at Nottingham Trent University. He is co-convenor of the Sociology of Rights Study Group of the British Sociological Association.

'Global Urban Justice provides a timely window into the theory and practice of human rights in the city. Although the volume helpfully collects many examples of success, its authors are careful not to generalize or romanticize the experience of local implementation. As a result, the collection offers a new lens through which to understand the issues that arise when efforts are made to take the broad set of rights articulated in the UDHR and UN treaties and turn them into real policies and programs that shape how people live. … Global Urban Justice should be understood as a clear-eyed call to action, highlighting the potential of human rights, not its inevitability.' Johanna Kalb, Columbia Human Rights Law Review

• 1. Introduction: the promise and challenges of human rights cities Barbara Oomen; Part I. Actors and their Shifting Capacities: 2. Cities, human rights and accountability: the United States experience Martha F. Davis; 3. Making human rights the talk of the town: civil society and human rights cities, a case study of the Netherlands Esther van den Berg; 4. Human rights at a local level: the Montréal experience Benoît Frate; 5. From principles to practice: the role of US mayors in advancing human rights JoAnn Kamuf Ward; Part II. Renegotiating Rights in the Urban Space: 6. Human rights in the city and the right to the city: two different paradigms confronting urbanisation Eva García Chueca; 7. Defying the demand to 'go home': from human rights cities to the urbanisation of human rights Jonathan Darling; 8. Contested advocacy: negotiating between rights and reciprocity in Nima and Maamobi, Ghana Catherine Buerger; 9. Localising the human right to water into the city context: insights from domestic litigation Natalya Pestova; Part III. Implementing Human Rights Cities: 10. Re-imagining human rights practice through the city: a case study of York (UK) Emily Graham, Paul Gready, Eric Hoddy and Rachel Pennington; 11. Human rights and the city: obligations, commitments and opportunities Klaus Starl; 12. The recognition of the right to the city in Mexico City: the Charter Ana María Sánchez Rodríguez; 13. In a state of becoming a human rights city: the case of Eugene, Oregon Kenneth J. Neubeck; Part IV. Conclusions: 14. Human rights cities: challenges and possibilities Cynthia Soohoo; 15. Towards a sociology of the human rights city: focusing on practice Michele Grigolo.