| Publication |
2008.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Historically, culture has been treated as an object in international
documents. One consequence of this is that cultural
rights in international law have been understood as rights of
access and consumption. Recently, an alternative conception
of culture, and of what cultural rights protect, has emerged
from international documents treating indigenous peoples.
Within these documents culture is treated as an activity rather
than a good. This activity is ascribed to peoples as well as persons,
and protecting the capacity of both peoples and persons
to engage in culture is taken to be as basic a component of human
dignity as are freedom of movement, freedom of speech,
and freedom from torture.
It is not an accident that this treatment of culture has
emerged from international documents treating indigenous
peoples, for indigenous peoples' cultural rights can be fully
understood only against the background of their basic rights
to self-determination. However, the value of this treatment of
culture extends beyond the human rights of indigenous peoples.
Treating culture as an activity establishes an understanding
of what cultural rights protect that clarifies the relationship
between cultural rights and other mechanisms for protecting
minorities and frames the role of cultural communities in the
realization of human dignity as an important physical and political
issue, not just a psychological one. This article offers an
account of what is wrong with violating cultural rights that
clearly and straightforwardly links violations of a group's cultural
rights to violations of its rights to persist and to flourish. For
these reasons, the norms regarding cultural rights that are
emerging from international documents treating indigenous
peoples are a much-needed step forward for peoples' rights
more generally
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