This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Barcelona is making the most of the anniversary to embark on a process to construct a major city agreement on human rights, with a ceremony involving sixty organisations and twenty consulates.

The BCN×DH: City Agreement on Human Rights aims to achieve new agreements between all sectors in Barcelona and tackle the main challenges for the city, paying special attention to social justice and the democratic guarantee. To this end, specific steps will be taken in various spheres, such as access to justice and legal security, decent work, economic and financial exclusion, digital exclusion, accessibility and more.

The city agreement on human rights should be developed during 2024 and approved in the final quarter of the year, with the inclusion of new emerging rights and all equality standards to be enable it to be rolled out in 2025.

A city committed to human rights

The city has always been linked to the defence of human rights, as demonstrated by the creation of the Councillor’s Office for Civil Rights at the City Council, in 1985, and other current initiatives such as the 2030 Agenda, the Master Plan on Cooperation for Global Justice, the programme “Barcelona, City of Rights”, the Office for Non-Discrimination and the government measure “For an Anti-racist Barcelona”.