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Chriochain, Majella Ni --- "Cultural Rights – A New Era" [2012] ELECD 799; in Keane, David; McDermott, Yvonne (eds), "The Challenge of Human Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: The Challenge of Human Rights

Editor(s): Keane, David; McDermott, Yvonne

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857939005

Section: Chapter 15

Section Title: Cultural Rights – A New Era

Author(s): Chriochain, Majella Ni

Number of pages: 21

Extract:

15. Cultural rights: A new era
Majella Ní Chríocháin

Cultural rights have long been the most neglected of human rights, in
terms of their theoretical treatment and their implementation. While
they are invariably included in the triad `Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights', they somehow disappear in the discourse. Even in the scant lit-
erature on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, cultural rights feature
little, if at all. In her exhaustive review of human rights institutions and
committees, Stamatopoulou found that in most instances they had paid
insufficient attention to cultural rights.1 Her review of the reports of the
Commission on Human Rights (now Human Rights Council) since 1990
revealed a lack of understanding and little interest in cultural rights, with
very few exceptions.2 This is despite the fact that cultural rights, particu-
larly the cultural rights of individuals, have been universally recognized in
international law as fundamental human rights and are provided for in a
host of international and regional instruments.3 The Vienna Declaration
also affirms that all human rights are `universal, indivisible and interde-
pendent and interrelated' and that they must be treated globally `in a fair
and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same emphasis.'4
In this paper, I will first set out the content of cultural rights, before
examining why it is that cultural rights have been so long neglected.
Five human rights are generally understood as cultural rights:



1 Stamatopoulou's comprehensive review of the right to ...