Resumen de Elsa Stamatopoulou. Cultural Rights in International Law
Does Man have a right to culture? Can people freely express their own cultural distinctiveness, be it in a language, physical appearance, or a specific set of norms and values? Should the state intervene to support and protect cultural rights of individuals, minority groups, or even the majority? And what role can the international community play in this endeavour to further cultural rights? Can a careful and balanced scrutiny of cultural claims contribute to a constructive �dialogue among civilizations�? 1 Does culture necessarily clash with other human rights? Notwithstanding early case law and the formal entry of cultural rights into the human rights catalogue after World War II, 2 cultural rights have been neglected for a long time and have been less developed than civil, political, economic, and social rights. 3 The book under review gives an excellent and systematic overview of the existing law and practice concerning cultural rights and, by offering answers to the questions mentioned above, surely contributes to the development of legal doctrine.
International legal instruments do not include a right to culture, but refer to cultural rights (at 110). Cultural rights include a series of different entitlements, such as the right to education, the right to participate in cultural life, the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress, the freedom for scientific research, and the possibility for individuals to speak their own dialects, to name a few. The reasons cultural rights are a less developed legal category vis-à-vis other human rights are complex and have a legal and political nature. From a legal standpoint, cultural rights remain difficult to define. Culture has a fluid and elusive nature, being not a static concept but rather a dynamic force which adopts different forms across time and space. 4 Definitions of culture, thus, rarely succeed in capturing �
