Professor Martha Davis Presents at International Expert Roundtable on Human Rights and Local Governance

Professor Martha Davis participated virtually in the Bologna II Expert Roundtable on April 23, 2026, hosted at the University of Bologna’s Palazzo Malvezzi. The expert gathering, co-organized by the University of Bologna’s Department of Legal Studies, the Geneva Human Rights Hub and Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, brought together scholars, diplomats and government officials from around the world to examine how local and regional governments (LRGs) can more effectively engage with the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR) — the process by which member states’ human rights records are reviewed by the international community.

Davis contributed to Session III on Multi-Level Governance Models, alongside representatives from the City of Utrecht, the Global Cities Hub and UPR-Info. The session focused on coordination mechanisms that can sustain LRG engagement in the UPR process across decentralized governance systems.

Drawing on her consultations with local government representatives experienced in UPR navigation, Davis offered a frank assessment of the current moment in the United States — and a constructive path forward. “In many ways, the United States currently illustrates the hardest case for the question of how to engage local and regional governments in the UPR, and the danger of politicizing human rights,” noted Davis, faculty co-director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Global Law and Justice. “Our federal government has pulled away from participation in the UPR process, and we have no national human rights body to report on US human rights compliance.”

Yet Davis pointed to the resilience of subnational actors as a counterweight. “What we do have is a very robust and active civil society, including many academic institutions with programs focused on human rights. Likewise, we have many local and state governments that want international engagement around human rights issues.” She highlighted the adoption of the CEDAW framework by San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities, and the Voluntary Local Reviews of the Sustainable Development Goals prepared by several cities and the state of Hawai’i, as examples of local governments filling the gap left by federal inaction.

Davis argued for flexibility in models of LRG participation, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. She also raised a provocative possibility — that giving subnational governments a formal seat at the table might actually encourage national government participation, since the federal government may not want to cede its reporting function to an LRG.