First World Conference on City Diplomacy supports Mayors for Peace
The Hague (Netherlands), June 13th 2008 - Around 400 local government representatives from more than 70 different countries came together in The Hague for the First World Conference on City Diplomacy.The participants, representatives from countries in conflict and their partners, discussed the role that local governments can play in preventing conflict, promoting dialogue and supporting colleagues in reconstruction efforts in post conflict situations.
The document which resulted from the two-day discussion and debate sets out an agenda for the World Organization of United Cities and Local Goverments in this area.
This final document "recalled the commitment of local governments expressed in the Final Declaration of the UCLG Congress "Changing Cities are Driving our World" (Jeju, October 2007), noting in particular the following statement 'We support the initiative of the Mayors for Peace campaign which lobbies the international community to renounce weapons of mass destruction. We call on nation states and armed groups to cease considering cities as military objectives.'"
Mayors for Peace organized one of the Conference workshop: "Cities Are Not Targets!" (See program description, below). The Workshop panel was made up of Ms. Irma Dioli, Vice-President of the Province of Milan (Italy), Mr. Michel Cibot, City manager of Malakoff (France), Mr. Josep Mayoral, and Mayor of Granollers (Spain). Mayor Mayoral introduced the Manifest issued during the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the aerial bombardment of Granollers, 31 May 1938. The Manifesto reads in part:
“Today, we make the commitment not to forget the tragic events that we have lived. For this purpose, we demand that NEVER AGAIN will civil population endure attacks like those. Not here nor anywhere else. Cities are not targets!
“There can be no justification for attacking populated areas, especially with explosive force or weapons of mass destruction. In our view such actions are blatantly illegal, and where international humanitarian law is ambiguous on this subject, it should be clarified, strengthened, and above all respected, with a view to protecting cities from the scourge of war.”
The Hague Agenda is available also in FRENCH and SPANISH
CITIES ARE NOT TARGETS!
Session in cooperation with Mayors for Peace
While every effort must be made to minimize violent conflict, it is likely to remain a recurring problem for the foreseeable future. With this in mind, Mayors for Peace focuses on the extreme forms which violence can take, with a view to protecting cities and their inhabitants from the scourge of war.
Existing international law does not establish clearly enough that cities, as concentrations of non-combatants, must be off limits to most types of military action. To date, the legal debate has been confined to human rights lawyers and military lawyers. Mayors have a responsibility to speak up in defence of their cities’ citizens, heritage, and infrastructure, and have a right to be heard when the rules of war and the international humanitarian law are reviewed and revised.
Mayors for Peace is already a strong presence in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review process, where it advocates that nuclear weapons are inherently so threatening to cities that the only proper course of action is to ban them completely, as has been done with chemical and biological weapons. Through the 2020 Vision Campaign, Mayors for Peace is preparing for the United Nations Decade for Disarmament, 2010-2020. Mayors for Peace intends to make it a decisive decade for nuclear disarmament.
Mayors for Peace would like to develop, in cooperation with UCLG, a capacity to effectively speak out whenever a city is turned into battlefield, more specifically, whenever explosive force is used in populated areas. How can we develop that capacity? Mayors for Peace spoke out against the indiscriminate rocket fire on Israeli cities and against the disproportionate firepower directed against Lebanese cities during the 2006 war. But that voice was not strong enough and over one million people were refugees before the fighting ended. How can we do better?
Moderator
Aaron Tovish, Mayors for Peace
SpeakersTadatoshi Akiba, Mayor of Hiroshima and President of Mayors for Peace (Japan) VIDEO MESSAGE
Josep Mayoral I Antigas, Mayor of Granollers (Spain)
Michel Cibot, City Manager, Malakoff (France)
Irma Dioli, Councilor for Participation, Peace, International Cooperation, Sport, and Youth Policies, Milan Province (Italy)
