Cities, Conflict and Recovery: Cultural Rights and Transitional Justice
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Description
Cities, Conflict and Recovery: Cultural Rights and Transitional Justice
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Transitional justice extends beyond criminal accountability to include measures aimed at restoring trust, rebuilding relationships and strengthening social cohesion. Cultural rights offer an important lens through which to consider this process: participation in cultural life, cultural expression and dialogue can create spaces in which different experiences and perspectives can coexist and communities can reconnect. Culture can also serve as a form of archiving: not every story, loss or lived experience becomes part of a judicial record, yet communities preserve and transmit them through art, music, literature, oral histories, language and other forms of cultural expression. In this way, culture can help preserve experiences across generations while creating space for dialogue, recognition and reconciliation. Building on the Human Rights Council’s work on human rights and transitional justice, including its most recent resolution A/HRC/RES/63/28, as well as resolution A/HRC/RES/57/12 on local government and human rights, the event will explore the connections between transitional justice, cultural rights and social cohesion at the local level. It will consider how municipalities, together with museums, libraries, schools and other cultural and educational institutions, can contribute to recovery, dialogue, inclusion and peaceful coexistence, and how locally grounded approaches can complement broader transitional justice and peacebuilding processes.
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Date: 16 November 2026
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The event provides an opportunity to connect cities navigating conflict, recovery and reconciliation with international actors shaping human rights, cultural rights and peacebuilding agendas. It highlights how local governments can contribute to reconciliation not only through governance and service delivery, but also by enabling cultural participation, supporting cultural expression, preserving community experiences and creating spaces for dialogue across communities. It would also provide a platform for cities to exchange experiences on how peace and social cohesion can be built and sustained at the local level.
Key questions
- How can cities address difficult histories while promoting reconciliation and social cohesion?
- How can cities and cultural institutions promote cultural rights and participation in cultural life to help rebuild trust and foster peaceful coexistence?
- What can international peacebuilding and transitional justice processes learn from locally grounded approaches to reconciliation?
Registration
Please register here for the online event.
📸 Mahmoud Sulaiman on Unsplash
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