Morten Kjaerum on Human Rights Cities

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A Human Rights City is a place where local government, civil society, private sector, and other stakeholders ensure the application of international human rights standards. As Morten Kjaerum of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute says, it is in the cities and local communities that life happens - whether urban or rural area, it is at the local level where social, political, and economic issues come into being, where policies are translated into concrete actions, and where rights are vindicated. Here, Raoul Wallenberg's Morten Kjaerum speaks with IHRB's Haley St. Dennis about the opportunity the rights-based approach offers to the full range of actors involved throughout the lifecycle of the built environment - from planning and finance through to management and re-use.

Morten Kjaerum has been Director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Sweden since 2015. Prior to that, he was the first Director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in Vienna from 2008 to 2015. He is currently also Chair of The Board of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE).