Die Rechte indigener Völker im Menschenrechtssystem

This textbook offers insights into the recently established special rights regime on indigenous peoples’ rights at international level. The reader is guided from the early beginnings of this issue in the 1970s to current jurisprudential developments. International and regional norms are introduced and contrasted with societal and political challenges. The book also opens broader debates on the politics of recognition and decolonisation, multilateral systems and global governance, the pluralisation of society and its institutions, collective rights and the meaning of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. This group-specific field of the international human rights protection system is viewed through the lenses of international law and socio-political approaches.

Housing as a Human Right within an Era of International Exceptionalism

The right to adequate housing is an internationally recognized human right, yet it has been incontrovertibly desecrated by a lack of recognition, disproportionately affecting vulnerable groups. Economic, social, and cultural rights have encountered many challenges in an ever-increasing era of international exceptionalism and challenges arise in the protection of these rights. The right to housing is achieved in two ways: as a normative right and as a derivative right encompassed within economic, social, and cultural rights. This article introduces: (1) the normative development of economic, social, and cultural rights as recognized human rights, and their regulatory implementation through international instruments; (2) the concept of individuals as right-holders and duty-bearers of economic, social, and cultural rights; (3) understanding how the restriction of the right to housing leads to the violation of other human rights, including (a) the right to life, (b) the right to freedom from discrimination, and (c) the right to humane treatment – and the types of vulnerable groups that face the most discrimination, such as indigenous persons and women; and (4) protection against forced evictions, through an examination of the jurisprudence of the Inter-American System, European Court of Human Rights, and African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Interview with Professor Om Gurung

Professor Om Gurung is a senior anthropologist, an influencing intellectual, and a prominent public leader in Nepal. He served Tribhuvan University as a professor of anthropology for 36 years and headed the Central Department of Sociology/Anthropology for 13 years. Professor Gurung did his M. A. in History from Tribhuvan University in 1975, M. A. in anthropology from the University of Poona in 1980, and Ph. D. in Anthropology from Cornell University of Ithaca, New York in 1996. He is one of the founding members of the Central Department of Sociology/Anthropology at Tribhuvan University of Nepal. He has served as a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Liverpool John Moores University in the UK, Lille University in France, and the University of Sichuan in China. He is a visiting research fellow at the University of Bergen, Norway, and a guest lecturer at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, Oxford University, UK, China Institute of New School University, New York, the University of Mons, Belgium, the University of Heidelberg, Germany and Chinese University in Hong Kong. Professor Gurung was heavily engaged in various social, professional, and political organizations. He has made substantial scholarly and social contributions to the understanding of social and political issues of Nepal. As a promising intellectual leader of ethnic rights and politics of social inclusion in Nepal, he raised socio-political awareness among indigenous peoples of Nepal and mobilized them to assert their ethnic identity and cultural rights. He has a deep commitment to the development of anthropology and Nepali people.

Staying moving, staying strong: Protocol for developing culturally appropriate information for Aboriginal people with osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and gout

Introduction Addressing disparities in arthritis care is an important yet unmet health need for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia (respectfully Aboriginal people herewith). Despite the significant prevalence and burden of arthritis within Aboriginal communities, access to care for arthritis is low. One means to reduce existing disparities in health care is to address current challenges relating to the appropriateness and acceptability of health care information resources for Aboriginal people. Health information sources can help to empower patients and their families to have greater involvement in their care and to engage in self-management of their condition. Despite an extensive range of arthritis information resources being available, currently no resources have been culturally adapted and developed in collaboration with Aboriginal consumers with arthritis. This paper outlines the processes that will be undertaken within the Staying Moving, Staying Strong project. This project aims to develop culturally secure arthritis information for Aboriginal people with osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and gout. Methods and analysis The overarching principle guiding this project is cultural security, referring to the incorporation of processes such that the research will not compromise the cultural rights, values and expectations of Aboriginal people. This project will prioritise partnerships, community engagement, community benefit, sustainability, transferability, and capacity building and therefore uphold the cultural rights and values of Aboriginal people. In this six-phase project we will; 1) Establish a community reference group and advisory committee; 2) Explore the health information needs and preferences of Aboriginal people with arthritis; 3) Synthesise the existing key recommendations in high quality clinical practice guidelines on arthritis care; 4) Culturally adapt key clinical recommendations; 5) Develop culturally appropriate arthritis resources and; 6) Qualitatively evaluate the developed resources.

Heritage preservation easements, urban property, and heritage law: Exploring Canadian common law and civil law tools for responding to international cultural preservation frameworks for cities

This article will first situate cultural heritage preservation in the urban context through an overview of notions of outstanding universal value, the role of cities in cultural heritage and municipal archaeology generally, paths toward the equitable and sustainable development of cities, and inclusive urban cultural rights in the context of cultural heritage where these appear within international law and guiding international legal frameworks for the protection of cultural heritage. The article will also discuss the notion of the ‘public good’ as it is applied within heritage preservation decisions and will also address the balancing of public and private interests in built heritage preservation. This article will further turn to the broad legal framework of cultural heritage protection for built spaces in Canada before narrowing in on the common law concept of a heritage easement agreement – notably, how it is and can be deployed in Canada – and the civil law conservation servitude as it is available in the Civil Code of Quebec.

Hobbes and the economic, social and cultural rights of the universal declaration of human rights

This article argues that the conceptions of natural rights in Hobbes’s theory and of economic, social and cultural rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have three common features that serve to justify the thesis that a satisfactory order of coexistence cannot be achieved without extensive state power. Both conceptions identify rights with interests whose satisfaction is considered paramount. Both perspectives see the state as the shaper of the legal order that rights do not create. Finally, both see the state as the entity that must monopolize the management of individual interests represented in rights. This article suggests that these findings are paradoxical when confronted with the main motivation behind the drafting of the Declaration.

The birth of minority legislation in the newly independent Finland and Estonia (1918–1920): a comparative analysis

This article analyzes how ethnic minorities were taken into account in the Finnish and Estonian constitutions, and why account was taken precisely in a certain way. At the same time, it approaches what kinds of views were presented by different political parties and interest groups, what kind of debate was being held in Parliament and how the matter was dealt with in the leading media. The outcome of the process in both countries was that exceptionally broad linguistic and cultural rights were given to minorities if the situation was compared with the rest of Europe. There were several factors behind the process. One factor was the relationship between ethnic groups in Finland and Estonia in the historical perspective. Another factor was each country's internal debate on what kind of social order in general was to be built. The third factor was how the politics in Finland and Estonia was influenced by international trends and theories about how ethnic minorities should have been treated.

The Role of the Court of Justice in Creating Standards for the Implementation of Cultural Rights

The present study seeks to answer the question whether the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union in cases concerning the exercise of broadly understood cultural policies may in reality affect the extent of implementation of cultural rights—that is, access to products of culture, participation in cultural life and freedom of artistic creativity—at the level of Member States. Cultural rights are traditionally regulated by the constitutions of EU Member States and are classified by legal scholars and commentators as second generation rights. Culture, in turn, according to primary legislation of the European Union, is only a supporting competence (Article 6 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union). However, a review of the Court’s case law demonstrates that CJEU’s judgments form standards that contribute to a more effective implementation of cultural rights guaranteed in the national law of the Member States and international agreements to which they are parties. This results from the nature of the Union’s law, which penetrates a national system and thanks to the principle of direct effect and supremacy truly affects the situation of EU citizens.

The Role of the Catholic Church in Facilitating Implementation of Constitutional Guarantees of Cultural Rights During the COVID-19 Pandemic

According to the research thesis presented in this article, the Catholic Church plays a special role in providing direct access to national cultural assets. The article analyses the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland guaranteeing cultural rights in the light of other provisions of the Constitution, including the principle of subsidiarity and the common good, as well as guarantees granted to religious associations. Moreover, the study analyses the existing provisions of specific acts, Concordat and church law, in order to verify the thesis on the role of the Catholic Church as a depositary of national cultural assets. In the era of the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of state-run cultural institutions, the Catholic Church allowed direct access to the sacred cultural property owned by the Church, thus facilitating the realization of the cultural rights of citizens of the Republic of Poland.

What’s in a dance? Dalkhai: from a religious community ritual, to a pro-scenium performance

An educational international project, initiated by a Romanian organisation, comprising folk dances from around the world, has challenged me to go deeper into understanding one of the most popular dance forms of Western Odisha, Dalkhai. Traditionally a religion-based folk dance connected to the agrarian culture of local Adivasi communities, it has been gradually developed into a cultural pattern of Odisha, Eastern India. Considering folklore as intangible cultural heritage of humanity, according to UNESCO definition, I explore the expression of this ritual-dance, in connection to the Adivasi culture, as Dalkhai is considered the goddess of fertility, initially worshipped by the tribal people/Adivasi like Mirdha, Kondha, Kuda, Gond, Binjhal, etc., but also in its recent metamorphosis into a proscenium representation. The Dalkhai dance is becoming visible and recognised at state, national and even international form of dance, while in the Adivasis communities it is noted that the ritual becomes less and less performed. Consulting the UNESCO definitions and documents on Intangible Cultural Heritage is useful for understanding how to approach a choric ritual, involving a tradition, music and dance, enhancing the importance of safeguarding cultural diversity while confronting cultural globalization. Its approach, in accordance with ‘universal cultural rights’, emancipatory politics concerning world culture and multiculturalism, opposes the disappearances and destruction of local traditions, indigenous practices. Heritage concerns the whole community, conferring an identity feeling, and supporting the transmission to the next generations, sustainable development, often involving economic stakes, becoming essential for developing the territories (Chevalier, 2000).