Since its creation 20 years ago, the Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights has been working towards an enhanced cooperation between the EU and Ukraine in the fields of justice, freedom and security with the aim of reinforcing the rule of law.
On 26th of November 2018, Monika Mayrhofer presented a paper on "Monitoring human rights – the role of cities" at the international conference "Cities, Territories and the Struggles for Human Rights: a 2030 perspective", which took place in Padova/Italy. The Conference was organised by the Human Rights Centre of the University of Padova in cooperation with the University of London, University of Gothenburg, University of Graz, University of Cape Town and University of Antwerp.
Manfred Nowak was recently awarded the 2018 Prize of the City of Vienna for Humanities, Cultural Sciences, Social Sciences and Law. The awards are given annually in recognition of a lifetime's achievement and underline the importance of Vienna as a lively place of art, science and public education. Vienna's City Councillor for Culture, Veronica Kaup-Hasler, emphasized that the prizes of the City of Vienna are an expression of gratitude and appreciation.
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna in June 1993, the Vienna+25 conference gathered experts from civil society and academia, national, regional and sub-regional human rights institutions as well as representatives from the local level in the Human Rights City of Vienna on 22 and 23 May 2018 to discuss current human rights challenges and elaborate recommendations how to tackle these challenges.
In June 1993, the World Conference on Human Rights took place in Vienna with the participation of more than 10,000 representatives from 171 countries. The Conference was a big success for the development of human rights and after two weeks of discussions, it was crowned by the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (VDPA), which empowered the protection and promotion of human rights universally.
On Wed, 21 Feb. 2018 there was a press conference on the human rights situation in Turkey and the handling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The comments of Veysel Ok (lawyer), Hannes Tretter (BIM), Ceren Uysal (BIM) and Friedrich Forsthuber (Österreichische Richtervereinigung) can be found in the following article on standard.at.
From 20-24 November 2017, the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights welcomed a 10-person study visit delegation from the office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsperson) in Vienna. The visit took place within the framework of the on-going Twinning project “Strengthening the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights”, in which the BIM is the Austrian partner institution.
On the 5th, December 2017 the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Human Rights received wonderful news from the president of the Legal Committee LAMBDA (RKL), Dr. Helmut Gaupner:
"Breaking news:
We won, by all terms! The Austrian Constitutional Court just
a) opened up marriage for same-gender couples and
b) opened up registered partnership for opposite-gender couples
(both from 1 January 2019)
The Human Rights Office of the City of Vienna, the Vienna Board of Education and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights with polis – the Austrian Centre for Citizenship Education in Schools offer four school classes the opportunity to experience a varied half-day on the topic of human rights.
Moderation: Patricia Hladschik (polis – the Austrian Centre for Citizenship Education in Schools)
