Abstract:
This paper aims to examine the nexus between Human Rights City (HRC) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from the point of view of Human Rights Based Approach. More specifically, this paper explores some challenges and opportunities to further enhance human rights and the connection to SDGs and HRC at the local context. Human Rights Based-Approach (HRBA) has led many researchers and research institutes to consistently refer to the approach as an important concept in the process of realization and enjoyment of environment-related human rights under the concept of Human Right City (HRC). Further, belief in the relevance of human rights to the sustainable development could lead to pursuit the SDGs 2030 at the city level. Qualitative approach was employed using data from desk research and interviews with local government leaders and officers, members of local parliament, NGOs activists, and people in the community of East Lampung regency which was declared as one of human rights cities in Indonesia. Findings show that HRC and SDGs can be mechanisms for exercising the HRBA at the local level where instruments of SDGs and HRC are a mutually-reinforcing each other. This research found that, in Indonesia, those mechanisms are mostly on the top-down basis via bureaucratic system, requiring a strong leadership and the need of capacity of decision makers in the process of adoption of human rights based-approach. This paper, therefore, suggests that to adopt the HRBA in practice, it needs to look at processes whereby social actors collaborate and act towards human rights at the local level. This paper concludes that challenges, potentials and also dynamic of adoption of the HRBA through HRC and SDGs can be understood meaningfully in particular social and political contexts.