The International Line-up at the WHRCF 2023

By Jonathan Joseph Chiarella 

The World Human Rights Cities Forum is indeed international. Instead of “world” being an unnecessary reminder that foreign guests are welcome, roughly two-thirds of the confirmed invitees for this year’s opening and plenary events hail from overseas. [As of the time of writing.] In a more intellectual world, the paparazzi would descend on the local train station, but I offer these professional details as a substitute. 

Geographic Representation 

The roster reflects the home of the forum, Korea, but also the world. The less rich countries and regions are notably less able to make certain appearances. However, we should mind Olivier De Schutter’s recommendation to not consider money a prerequisite for implementing human rights. Some punch above their weight, others below. 

Two guests hail from Indonesia, the mayor of Singkawang, Sumastro, and the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Executive Office, Jaleswari Pramodhawardani. From sub-Saharan Africa come Emmanuel Serunjoji (veteran of local politics and current mayor of the Kawempe Division of Uganda’s Kampala Capital City Authority) and Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o (governor of Kenya’s Kisumu County and a former Secretary-General of Kenya’s Orange Democratic Movement). 

On the other hand, one can see that the USA that established the UN is not the same as the USA of today, but stepping up to the plate this year is Constanza Lizana, the mayor of San Antonio, Texas. From Montreal, Canada, Arber Fetiu represents an interesting intersection of the sub-national and the international, being an international relations adviser for the municipal government of the city of Montreal within the semi-autonomous Quebec province. 

International Government Organizations (IGOs) like the UN and the World Bank, as well as the Europeans, have both the means to implement their visions and a strong motivation to be internationalist. Once again, they have a strong showing. 

The Opening Ceremony 

Giving opening and welcoming remarks, respectively, are Gwangju’s political leaders, Mayor Kang Gi-jung and Metropolitan Council Chair Jeong Mu-chang. Previously, Kang was a three-term representative for northern Gwangju in the National Assembly. This year, Kang oversaw the implementation of the law to remove building height restrictions in Gwangju. This may evoke images of the overbearing concrete jungle, but you would theoretically conserve green space and reduce onerous transportation by housing the same number of people into fewer but taller buildings. Minimizing sprawl is therefore inherently “good,” but we will see if this change can help Kang’s wishes for Gwangju to emulate cities of like Nuremberg, Germany, and Malmö, Sweden. 

Education Superintendent Lee Jeong-seon will give congratulatory remarks, as will top-level members of IGOs: Nada Al-Hasif, UN Deputy High Commissioner; Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director-General; and Emilia Saiz, UCLG General Secretary. 

For the opening keynote speech, the Forum has secured the participation of Chang Ha-joon. Chang is a Korean expatriate with decades of studying, researching, and teaching economics in Britain. He is currently a professor at the SOAS University of London. His published work covers academics, wider-reaching advocacy, and sometimes both in order to fix common misunderstandings about the history of “free trade,” debt, and poverty in global politics since 1945. 

The Roundtable 

Kim Joon-seop, the WHRCF Planning Committee Chair, will moderate the roundtable, which features Mayor Kang alongside the chair of the Korean Human Rights Commission, Kim Mi-kyoung; and the director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, Morten Kjærum; as well as Vicki Felthaus, the deputy mayor of youth, schools, and democracy for Leipzig, Germany; Sumastro, the mayor of Singkawang, Indonesia; and Karolina Zdrodowska, the deputy mayor of Warsaw, Poland’s capital. The last two members add valued but non-obvious additions to the discussions. 

Singkawang is unusually diverse. Unlike much of Indonesia, it is not demographically dominated by the Javanese. Although the ethnic Chinese are under half of the population, they form the biggest single group. Country-wide, however, the ethnic Chinese are much smaller, and their  

complex status reflects Indonesia’s complicated (and occasionally violent) ethnic relations. These relations are built or broken “on the ground,” which underlines the importance of mayors. Zdrodowska has been an open supporter of sexual minorities in a part of Europe where the past decade has seen marked “democratic backsliding” and revanchist conservatism. 

The Plenary Session 

For the plenary session, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Poverty, Olivier De Schutter, will deliver the keynote speech. [See last issue for an interview.] After this, two panels will commence. Morten Kjærum will moderate the first panel, featuring the aforementioned Jaleswari Pramodhawardani and Serunjoji, as well as Audrey Garino (Deputy Mayor of Marseille, France), Cho Mun-young (Professor at Yonsei University, specializing in the anthropology of Chinese and Korean workers), and Meghna Abraham (executive director of the international NGO, the Center for Economic and Social Rights). On the second panel are the aforementioned Lizana, Fetiu, and Nyong’o, as well as Ham In-sun, Gwangju City Architect; José A. Cuesta, professor at Georgetown University and lead economist at the World Bank; and Attiya Waris, professor at the University of Nairobi, and an independent expert for the UN. She also writes on “tax justice” and the injustice of the race-to-the-bottom. 

The roundtable and plenary session will provide an opportunity to dissect the issues and share stories of successes and challenges in an international setting. Although all speakers are highly educated, the diversity in their professions will provide multiple perspectives, allowing one to both understand the logic of relevant issues and the practical implementation of the (lofty) goal of “human rights.”