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Abstract
This contribution addresses human rights in the city of Barcelona, analysing the treatment and outcome of migration-related complaints to the Office for Non-Discrimination (OND), a municipal service in Barcelona. The city provides both the level and the unit of analysis of the complaints to the OND. The OND has dealt with a variety of migration-related legal issues by using the human rights framework flexibly and providing different types of solutions in relation to two main constraints: the status of the migrants and the systemic and hidden nature of discrimination affecting them. The contribution suggests ways beyond those provided for by the law in which cities can support (migrant) human rights through an institution like the OND.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to all the people that guided or helped me with this research, and in particular Michael Keating and Virginie Guiraudon. I am in debt to the people at the OND and the FDOD for their practical support and immediate availability. I thank Daniel for helping me with the interviews and bibliographical resources. This research was supported by doctoral grants from the European University Institute and the Italian government, and a postdoctoral grant from the Portuguese Federation for Science and Technology (FCT).
Notes
Find the European Charter for the Safeguarding Human Rights in the City, available at http://www.idhc.org/cat/documents/Carta_ingles.pdf (accessed January 29, 2010).
A general introduction to the UNESCO coalition is available at http://portal.unesco.org/shs/en/ev.php-URL_ID=3061&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html (accessed January 29, 2010).
Martha F. Davis, ‘Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: States, Municipalities, and International Human Rights’, in Bringing Human Rights Home: A History of Human Rights in the United States, Vol.2, From Civil Rights to Human Rights, ed. Cynthia Soohoo, Catherine Albisa and Martha F. Davis (Westport, London: Praeger, 2008), 127–52.
For an account of urban citizenship, see Robert A. Beauregard and Anna Bounds, ‘Urban Citizenship’, in Democracy, Citizenship and the Global City, ed. Engin F. Isin (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 243–56.
See Michele Grigolo, ‘Human Rights and the City: Anti-Discrimination Laws and Policies in New York and Barcelona’ (PhD diss., European University Institute, 2009).
Between 2003 and 2007, the RDC was named ‘City Department for Women and Civil Rights’. For more information, see the RDC's official website: http://w3.bcn.es/XMLServeis/XMLHomeLinkPl/0,4022,259064949_271177360_1,00.html (accessed January 28, 2010). From there, one can easily link to the OND's webpage, which provides general information and many of the documents I quote in this contribution, and used in its preparation.
In Europe, Dutch city Anti-discrimination Bureaus have provided this type of service for about 30 years. Yet, these are not purely public agencies. In the US, city commissions on human rights exist in several cities and enact local civil rights statutes. The OND was actually modelled on the human rights commission of San Francisco. Interview with Agustí Soler (Head of RDC, 1995–1999), Barcelona, 16 February 2005.
Interview with Guadalupe Pulido (OND Director), Gustavo Czech-Bergtholt Tejeria (OND technician) and Anna Figueras (lawyer), 18 February 2010.
On this see, for example, Richard Drabble, James Maurici and Tim Buley, ed., Local Authorities and Human Rights (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Anthony Woodiwiss, Human Rights (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), 121.
Ibid., 4.
Statistics concerning OND complaints are published regularly in annual leaflets posted under the section ‘documents OND’ of the RDC's website at http://w3.bcn.es/XMLServeis/XMLHomeLinkPl/0,4022,259064949_271177360_1,00.html (accessed 31 August 2010). For this article, I used those from 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2008. The OND also provided me with a file containing statistics of complaints from 2006. A 2007 OND publication provides data on cases covering nine years of activity of the Office (1998–2006): see Oficina per la No Discriminació (OND), 8 anys vetllant pels drets civils: Barcelona 1998–2006 (Barcelona: OND, 2007). The sample of cases reported by the OND was posted on the agency's website: see http://www.bcn.es/ond/en/queixes.html (accessed May 14, 2007). These 21 migration-related complaints are actually complaints that the OND categorised differently as discrimination ‘due to being an immigrant and/or a member of a cultural minority’ in 1999, discrimination ‘due to origin’ in 2000, and discrimination based on ‘racial discrimination’ in 2001. These reports contain: (1) information on the right allegedly violated; (2) a brief summary of the facts of the complaint and the issues at stake, including the nationality of the person(s) involved in the complaint; (3) the type of intervention that the OND carried out (mediation or legal support) and, with some exceptions; (4) the outcome of the OND's intervention. These data have been integrated by information provided by interviews that I conducted with the current and former staff of the RDC and the OND between 2004 and 2010.
Daniel Thym, ‘Respect for Private and Family Life Under Article 8 ECHR in Immigration Cases: A Human Right to Regularize Illegal Stay?’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly 57, no. 1 (2008): 87.
Gary P. Freeman, ‘National Models, Policy Types, and the Politics of Immigration in Liberal Democracies’, West European Politics 29, no. 2 (2006): 227.
See Lydia Morris, Managing Migration: Civic Stratification and Migrant Rights (London: Routledge, 2002); and Kate Nash, ‘Between Citizenship and Human Rights’, Sociology 43, no. 6 (2009): 1067.
Spain, Ley Orgánica 4/2000 de 11 de enero, sobre derechos y libertades de los extranjeros en España y su integración social, BOE, 12 January 2000. An updated version of this law can be found at http://noticias.juridicas.com/base_datos/Admin/lo4-2000.html# (accessed 31 August 2010).
On this, see Ricard Zapata-Barrero, ‘Policies and Public Opinion Towards Immigrants: The Spanish Case’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 32, no. 7 (2009): 1101.
Maria Helena Beyoda Muriel and Eduard Solé Alamarja, ‘El procés de normalització de treballadors estrangers del 2005’, in: L'estat de la immigració a Catalunya. Anuari 2005. Volum I: Anàlisi jurídica i sociodemogràfica (Barcelona: Editorial Mediterrània, 2006), 38–61.
Robert Agranoff, ‘Local Governments in Spain's Multilevel Arrangements,’ in Spheres of Governance: Comparative Studies of Cities in Multilevel Governance Systems, ed. Harvey Lazar and Christian Leuprecht (Montreal & Kingston, London, Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007), 56–61.
Ricard Zapata-Barrero and Nynke de Witte, ‘D1 Preliminary Report on the Migration Situation of Each Country Prepared for the Project’, A European Approach to Multicultural Citizenship. Legal Political and Educational Challenges, 2006, 10, http://www.upf.edu/gritim/_pdf/griip-emilie_wp1.pdf (accessed January 14, 2010).
See Europa Press, ‘Zapatero asegura que el nuevo Reglamento de Extranjería clarificará las condiciones del padrón’, La Vanguardia, 10 March 2010, http://www.lavanguardia.es (accessed January 14, 2010).
Different sociological explanations of this phenomenon have been provided. One is grounded on social polarisation: see John H. Mollenkopf and Manuel Castells, ed., Dual City: Restructuring New York (New York: Russel Sage foundation, 1991); Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991). An alternative explanation is the ‘skill mismatch’ theory: see William J. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass, and Public Policy (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987).
Ronald van Kempen, ‘Segregation and Housing Conditions of Immigrants in Western European Cities’, in Cities of Europe: Changing Contexts, Local Arrangements, and the Challenge to Urban Cohesion, ed. Yuri Kazepov (Malden, Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 190–209.
Michael Keating, Comparative Urban Politics. Power and the City in the United States, Canada, Britain and France (Aldershot, Brookfield: Edward Elgar, 1991).
Patrick Le Galés, European Cities and Social Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
In this respect, see Marisol García, ‘The Case of Barcelona’, in: Metropolitan Governance and Spatial Planning: Comparative Case Study of European City Regions, ed. Willem Salet, Andy Thornley and Anton Kreukels (London and New York: Spon Press, 2003), 337–58.
An important wave of external migration began in the 1960s from Africa and Latin America; migration from Latin America (including students and refugees) continued through the 1970s. In the 1980s, Asians too began to arrive in the city. See Ricard Morén-Alegret, Integration and Resistance: The Relation of Social Organisations, Global Capital, Governments and International Immigration in Spain and Portugal (Aldershot, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002), 62–3.
Concerning data for 1996, see Ajuntament de Barcelona, Departament d'Estadística, La població estrangera a Barcelona, Gener 2005, http://www.bcn.es/estadistica/catala/dades/inf/pobest/pobest05/pobest05.pdf. Concerning the foreign population for 2009, see Ajuntament de Barcelona, Departament d'Estadística, La població estrangera a Barcelona, Gener 2009, http://www.bcn.es/estadistica/catala/dades/inf/pobest/pobest09/pobest09.pdf. Total absolute figures for all years are taken from an online table at http://www.bcn.es/estadistica/catala/dades/anuari/cap02/C020101.htm (all websites accessed January 29, 2009).
On the 2009 figures, see again Ajuntament de Barcelona, Departament d'Estadística, La població estrangera a Barcelona, Gener 2009. In relation to the 2005 figures, see again the Statistics Department: for the 2009 figures at Ajuntament de Barcelona, Departament d'Estadística, La població estrangera a Barcelona, Gener 2005.
Miguel Pajares, ‘La inserció laboral de la población immigrada’, in L'estat de la immigració a Catalunya. Anuari 2006. Volum I: Anàlisi jurídica i sociodemogràfica (Barcelona: Editorial Mediterrània, 2007), 335–67.
The dissimilarity index is one of the most internationally diffused and debated tools to measure different forms of segregation. It aims to highlight inequality between two groups, a majority/advantaged group and a minority/disadvantaged group. In the case of residential segregation, the index usually measures the concentration of a group in selected rich and poor areas of a city. Higher values correspond to higher concentration and, eventually, segregation. For the first conceptualisation of the index, see Otis Dudley Duncan and Beverly Duncan, ‘A Methodological Analysis of Segregation Indexes’, American Sociological Review 20, no. 41 (1955): 210–17.
Joan Carles Martori and Karen Hoberg, ‘Segregació residencial de la població estrangera a Barcelona (2001–2005)’, in L'estat de la immigració a Catalunya. Anuari 2006. Volum I: Anàlisi jurídica i sociodemogràfica (Barcelona: Editorial Mediterrània, 2007), 369–85.
See Ricard Morén-Alegret, ‘Tuning the Channels: Local Government Policies and Immigrant Participation in Barcelona’, in Multicultural Policies and Modes of Citizenship in European Cities, ed. A. Rogers and J. Tillie (Aldershot, Burlington, US, Singapore, Sidney: Ashgate, 2001), 61; Davide Però, ‘Migrants and the Politics of Governance: The Case of Barcelona’, Social Anthropology 15, no. 3 (2008): 271–86.
On the Ordinance and the RDC reaction to it, see See Michele Grigolo, ‘Human Rights and the City: Anti-Discrimination Laws and Policies in New York and Barcelona’, 345–6.
OND, 8 anys vetllant pels drets civils: Barcelona 1998–2006, 32.
Ibid., 22.
Interview with Pulido, Czech-Bergtholt and Figueras.
In Spain the Roma community commonly defines itself as a community of gitanos without any pejorative implications or meaning. The Spanish Fundación Secretariado Gitano (Gypsy Secretariat Foundation) employs ‘gitanos’ to refer to the Spanish Roma and ‘Roma’ to refer to Roma people on a European scale. See http://www.gitanos.org/servicios/prensa/preguntas_frecuentes/index.html. It is within this framework that I translate ‘gitanos’ with ‘gypsies’. On the particularly hard forms of marginalisation experienced by the gypsy community in Spain (although the situation in Barcelona may be better than elsewhere) see Alfredo Alphageme Chao and Mariví Martínez Sancho, ‘Estructura de edades, escolarización y tamaño de la población gitana asentada en España’, Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, no. 106 (2004): 161–74.
Interview with Pulido, Czech-Bergtholt and Figueras.
Interview with Isabela Santaulària (technician), Barcelona, 4 December 2006.
This is the expression used by Guadalupe Pulido as opposed to simply ‘referring’ people to other city services. Interview with Pulido, Czech-Bergtholt and Figueras.
See Sandra Fredman, ‘Introduction’, in Discrimination and Human Rights: The Case of Racism, ed. Sandra Fredman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 3; Kathrin Zippel, The Politics of Sexual Harassment: A Comparative Study of the United States, the European Union, and Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 114–16, 220–3.
Interview with Pulido, Czech-Bergtholt and Figueras.
Interview with Pulido and Czech-Bergtholt, Barcelona, 17 November 2004.
Article XII of the Charter provides that ‘The right of the citizens is recognised to have information of various kinds and from various sources in relation to the social, economic, cultural and local administrative life, limited by a respect for the privacy of the individual and the protection of small children and young people.’
See the Coalition website at http://www.proacceso.org (accessed May 15, 2010).
I discussed the definition of these categories during all my interviews with Pulido, Czech-Bergtholt, Figueras and with Isabela Santaulària of both 4 and 7 December 2006.
OND, 8 anys vetllant pels drets civils: Barcelona 1998–2006, 23.
Interview with Pulido, Czech-Bergtholt and Figueras and interview with Miguel Angel Aguilar (FDOD), Barcelona, 18 February 2010.
OND, 8 anys vetllant pels drets civils: Barcelona 1998–2006, 39.
Interview with Pulido, Czech-Bergtholt and Figueras.
OND, 8 anys vetllant pels drets civils: Barcelona 1998–2006, 49.
Interview with Pulido, Czech-Bergtholt and Figueras.
Ibid.
OND, 8 anys vetllant pels drets civils: Barcelona 1998–2006, 20.
Interview with Santaulària, 7 December 2006.
See Generalitat de Catalunya, ‘Els Mossos d'Esquadra amplien el protocol contra els delictes homo ‘fobs a lots els delictes motivats per odi o discriminació,’ 17 May 2010, available at http://premsa.gencat.cat/pres_fsvp/docs/2010/05/17/18/S7/d9b294fc_fcc2_441b_9267faddd21eba.pdf (accessed 1 September 2010).
Interview with Miguel Angel Aguilar.
See both the sample of cases and interview with Pulido and Czech-Bergtholt.
Interview with Pulido, Czech-Bergtholt and Figueras.
Ibid.
Interview with Pulido and Czech-Bergtholt.
Interview with Santaulària, 7 December 2006.
Interview with Pulido, Czech-Bergtholt and Figueras.
Interview with Santaulària, 7 December 2006.
Ibid.
See Ajuntament de Barcelona, Regidoria de Dona i Drets Civils, L'Habitatge un dret vulnerat: Habitatge i discriminació (Barcelona, 2003).
Amador Guallar, ‘Los inmigrantes y los discapacitados son marginados en la búsqueda de vivienda’, El Mundo, 18 April 2002, http://www.elmundo.es/2002/04/18/catalunya/520007.html (accessed May 15, 2010).
Interview with Santaulària, 7 December 2006.
Interview with Pulido, Czech-Bergtholt and Figueras.
Lydia Morris, Asylum, Welfare and the Cosmopolitan Ideal: A Sociological of Rights (Abingdon, New York: Routledge, 2010), 145.
Keating, Comparative Urban Politics, 191.
Gráinne de Búrca, ‘EU Race Discrimination Law: A Hybrid Model?’, in Law and Governance in the EU and the US, ed. Gráinne de Búrca and Joanne Scott (Oxford, Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, 2006), 97–120.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Diritto ed emancipazione sociale (Troina: Città Aperta Edizioni, 2008).