This article considers the use of human rights law as a resource for urban governance by African cities, thereby supplementing the growing literature on ‘human rights cities’ that has thus far focused on the experiences of cities in the Global North. It considers the motivations for and impact of human rights city initiatives, before taking a closer look at reported instances of rights invocation in and by African cities and pointing to factors that explain the seemingly limited traction of human rights law for urban local governments on the continent. The article shows that incomplete and politically contested devolution arrangements across African constitutional systems have combined with pressures pertaining to the domestic enforceability of socio-economic rights to structure a somewhat cautious and fraught, but nevertheless promising, relationship between local governments in African cities and human rights law.

中文翻译：

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非洲的“人权城市”？权利作为南半球城市治理的资源

本文探讨了非洲城市利用人权法作为城市治理资源的情况，从而补充了越来越多的关于“人权城市”的文献，这些文献迄今为止主要关注北半球城市的经验。它考虑了人权城市倡议的动机和影响，然后仔细研究了非洲城市中和非洲城市所报道的人权援引实例，并指出了人权法对非洲大陆城市地方政府的吸引力似乎有限的因素。文章表明，整个非洲宪法体系中不完整且存在政治争议的权力下放安排，加上与社会经济权利在国内可执行性有关的压力，在非洲城市地方政府与人权之间构建了一种有些谨慎和令人担忧但仍然充满希望的关系。法律。