Cultural Property and Identity Issues in International Law

2012 ◽  
pp. 256-277
Author(s):  
Athanasios Yupsanis
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Sacred Objects ◽  
Cultural Sites ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Cultural Relics

Indigenous peoples have historically experienced countless losses of cultural relics and material and spiritual treasures as well as destruction of their sacred cultural sites, a situation that continues to prevail. This desecration of ancestral sites and pillaging of sacred objects results in the cultural debasement of indigenous peoples, causing a serious threat to their continuing collective existence as distinct societies. Unfortunately, the present international law regime for the protection, repatriation, and return of stolen and illegally exported cultural property presents serious deficiencies as regards its ability to reverse this state of affairs and effectively safeguard indigenous peoples’ heritage.

Cultural Property and Identity Issues in International Law

2014 ◽  
pp. 976-997
Author(s):  
Athanasios Yupsanis
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Sacred Objects ◽  
Cultural Sites ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Cultural Relics

Indigenous peoples have historically experienced countless losses of cultural relics and material and spiritual treasures as well as destruction of their sacred cultural sites, a situation that continues to prevail. This desecration of ancestral sites and pillaging of sacred objects results in the cultural debasement of indigenous peoples, causing a serious threat to their continuing collective existence as distinct societies. Unfortunately, the present international law regime for the protection, repatriation, and return of stolen and illegally exported cultural property presents serious deficiencies as regards its ability to reverse this state of affairs and effectively safeguard indigenous peoples’ heritage.

The “Quimbaya Treasure,” Judgment SU-649/17

2019 ◽  
Vol 113 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Mejía-Lemos
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Colombian Government ◽  
Treaty Interpretation ◽  
Settlement Of Disputes

The Colombian Constitutional Court (Court) ordered the Colombian government to seek the restitution of a set of 122 golden objects of the Quimbaya people in a judgment issued on October 19, 2017 (Judgment). The Judgment addressed significant issues of international law relating to unilateral acts, treaty interpretation, cultural property (particularly that of indigenous peoples), and the settlement of disputes involving claims for restitution of cultural property through diplomacy and mediation.

How do you patent a landscape? The perils of dichotomizing cultural and intellectual property

1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
RL Barsh
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
Indigenous Institutions ◽  
Natural Land ◽  
Scientific Objects ◽  
Cultural Monuments

For a variety of conceptual, historical, and political reasons, contemporary international law distinguishes between 'natural' land forms, cultural monuments, movable cultural property, the performing arts, and scientific knowledge. Indigenous peoples do not make these distinctions. Rather, they tend to regard landscapes as inherently cultural products in which artworks, literature, performances, and scientific-knowledge systems are inextricably embedded. Scientific knowledge must periodically be rehearsed within the landscape in recitations and performances that remember the historical process by which people and their nonhuman kinfolk constructed the landscape. Detaching specific cultural or scientific 'objects' from the landscape and commodifying them, as is contemplated by most current proposals for protecting indigenous peoples' rights, will undermine the indigenous institutions and procedures necessary for perpetuating the quality and validity of local knowledge.

Indigenous Peoples

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russel Lawrence Barsh
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
International Labour Organisation ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right

This article first treats the emergence of indigenous peoples' rights in international law in its historic context. Subsequently, it addresses conceptual issues related to the position of indigenous peoples in international law. These issues concern critical distinctions and assumptions related to the definition of what constitutes an ‘indigenous people’ and, especially, the distinction between minority and indigenous peoples' rights and the collective representation of indigenous peoples. The article also explores the role of indigenous peoples in international environmental law with a focus on distinctively indigenous rights and responsibilities. Indigenous rights, and especially substantive rights, relate to the environment, regardless of whether they are pursued in the context of the International Labour Organisation or the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). The article also looks at community rights and partnerships, rights to land and the environment, political rights, intellectual and cultural property rights, and the right to external self-determination.

Sovereignty, Self-Determination, and Natural Resources

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jérémie Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
The Right

The issue of sovereignty over natural resources has been a key element in the development of international law, notably leading to the emergence of the principle of States’ permanent sovereignty over their natural resources. However, concomitant to this focus on States’ sovereignty, international human rights law proclaims the right of peoples to self-determination over their natural resources. This has led to a complex and ambivalent relationship between the principle of States’ sovereignty over natural resources and peoples’ rights to natural resources. This chapter analyses this conflicting relationship and examines the emergence of the right of peoples to freely dispose of their natural resources and evaluates its potential role in contemporary advocacy. It notably explores how indigenous peoples have called for the revival of their right to sovereignty over natural resources, and how the global peasants’ movement has pushed for the recognition of the concept of food sovereignty.

The International Legal Personality of the Individual

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Legal Personality ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The Individual ◽  
International Legal Personality ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

This book scrutinizes the relationship between the concept of international legal personality as a theoretical construct and the position of the individual as a matter of positive international law. By testing four main theoretical conceptions of international legal personality against historical and existing international legal norms that govern individuals, the book argues that the common narrative about the development of the role of the individual in international law is flawed. Contrary to conventional wisdom, international law did not apply to States alone until the Second World War, only to transform during the second half of the twentieth century to include individuals as its subjects. Rather, the answer to the question of individual rights and obligations under international law is—and always was—solely contingent upon the interpretation of international legal norms. It follows, of course, that the entities governed by a particular norm tell us nothing about the legal system to which that norm belongs. Instead, the distinction between international and national legal norms turns exclusively on the nature of their respective sources. Against the background of these insights, the book shows how present-day international lawyers continue to allow an idea, which was never more than a scholarly invention of the nineteenth century, to influence the interpretation and application of contemporary international law. This state of affairs has significant real-world ramifications as international legal rights and obligations of individuals (and other non-State entities) are frequently applied more restrictively than interpretation without presumptions regarding ‘personality’ would merit.

Conflict of Laws and the Return of Indigenous Peoples’ Cultural Property: A Latin American Perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 437-456
Author(s):  
María Julia Ochoa Jiménez
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Latin American ◽  
National Level ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Property A ◽  
American Perspective ◽  
International Instruments ◽  
Conflict Of Law

Abstract:In Latin America, conflict-of-law norms have not appropriately considered the cultural diversity that exists in their legal systems. However, developments towards the recognition of Indigenous peoples’ human rights, at the international and national levels, impose the task of considering such diversity. In that regard, within the conflict-of-law realm, interpersonal law offers a useful perspective. This article proposes a conflict-of-law rule that can contribute to clarity and legal certainty, offering a sound way of dealing at the national level with Indigenous peoples’ claims for restitution of property with a cultural value for them, which is framed in international instruments on human rights.

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