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Study on measures taken by municipalities and recommendations for further action to achieve greater vigilance against racism: Commitment 1 of the Ten-Point Plan of Action
Place of publication | Year of publication | Collation: 
| 2006 | 123 p.
Author: 
Klaus Starl
Corporate author: 
UNESCO; European Training and Research Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (Austria)
Region: 
Europe and North America

Commitment 1 of the Ten-Point Plan of Action of the European Coalition of Cities against Racism requires ‘Greater Vigilance against Racism’. This point aims at setting up a monitoring, vigilance and solidarity network against racism at the municipal level. To reach this goal, the members of the coalition are called to undertake activities, elaborate strategies and establish relevant institutions to monitor the local situation concerning structures in society, attitudes within the population and racist incidents. They are called to find out causes for racist tendencies among their population and establish solidarity networks involving all stakeholders, particularly civil society organisations. As an external expert, the European Training and Research Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Graz, Austria, (ETC Graz) was commissioned by UNESCO to carry out a study on the measures already taken against racism at the local level that serve as good illustration of ‘Commitment 1’. Major information resource was the written material provided by the selected cities. Through direct exchange and/or interviews with responsible officers of the municipalities and some NGOs, additional or missing information could be obtained. The material is not to be considered as complete. On the basis of the contribution sent in by the participating cities, the ETC made an assessment whether these actions/activities meet the objective of the Commitment 1. The authors used the following criteria to make this assessment: does the action undertaken contribute to a) creating and promoting vigilance directly; b) creating and promoting vigilance indirectly through awareness raising; c) creating and promoting vigilance through a monitoring measure or d) the establishment and maintenance of a solidarity network. The authors presumed that c) and d) will lead directly to greater vigilance. The following recommendations are derived from the eight selected measures documented in Chapter II, and the analysis on their replicability in Chapter III. The 10 recommendations expicitly or implicitly refer to the replicable documented measures. Where the replicability requires specific conditions, these are stated or it is recommended to fulfil these conditions firstly, i.e. structural and institutional conditions. The 10 recommendations are addressed to municipalities in Europe irrespective of their current membership in the European Coalition of Cities against Racism. As already mentioned the recommendations focus on meeting the requirement of Commitment 1, creating greater vigilance against racism.

Files: 
Resource Type: 
International normative instruments / policy and advocacy documents
Research papers / journal articles
Theme: 
Civic / Citizenship / Democracy
Human rights
Globalisation and social justice / International understanding
Diversity / cultural literacy / inclusive
Keywords: 
antisemitism