Challenges in norm-localization at the city level: the case of localizing the human rights city concept in Bandung, Indonesia

Abstract The concept of the Human Rights City encourages local governments to take into account and promote human rights norms in the way they govern and in the development of their districts. In 2015, Bandung, one of Indonesia's key metropolitan cities, declared itself the first Human Rights City in the country through what was claimed as a bottom-up initiative. However, several national-scale or top-down initiatives were made long before 2015 to emphasis the role of municipalities in human-rights protection and implementation. Thus, it is significant to analyze how the existence of multiple human-rights-related initiatives constitute the Human Rights City regime in Bandung. Using the concept of norm-localization by Acharya, this study aims to take a closer look at how the Human Rights City concept, a globally promoted concept, was localized in 2015 and has affected the constitution of Human Rights City regime in Bandung. This study finds that the effort did not necessarily strengthen the Human Rights City regime in Bandung and instead, created confusion among city officials and stakeholders due to multiple incoherent initiatives on Human Rights City policies. The study offers suggestions on how human rights regimes in cities such as Bandung might be improved.