Challenging the Rhetoric of Human Rights Through Cultural Heritage Practice

Welcome to a seminar om human rights and cultural heritage with Jessica Wiseman, Doctoral Candidate in Public International law, EUI (Florence) and Anna Karlström, senior lecturer and researcher in conservation studies, Department of Art History, Uppsala University.

Please register at https://doit.medfarm.uu.se/bin/kurt3/kurt/101236.

Abstract:

Cultural heritage law is increasingly articulated in terms of human rights. This rhetoric fosters the notion that the protection of cultural heritage and human rights are inevitably intertwined, exemplified by the idea that access to cultural heritage constitutes a human right. Internationally, this issue has gained prominence in recent decades, particularly within the United Nations Security Council, while concurrently becoming a significant focus within UNESCO. This shift has led cultural heritage lawyers and experts to increasingly justify their work by highlighting its relevance to human rights, rather than viewing it solely as a matter of heritage conservation. In this presentation, we examine the underlying assumptions of this development, particularly demonstrating that cultural heritage law and policy, both conceptually and in implementation, have threatened rather than protected the human rights of those affected by heritage issues. We explore why this situation has arisen and why international jurists and heritage experts have overlooked this complexity. Through case studies from Southeast Asia, we advocate for a more holistic understanding of the relationship between cultural heritage and human rights.

Comments by dr. Love Rönnelid, post-doc researcher in Public Law at the Faculty of Law, Uppsala University, and Associate Lecturer in Public International Law, Stockholm University.

A lunch wrap served after the seminar. The seminar is held in Swedish.