Defining cultural rights

Issues at stake: concrete universality

Cultural rights still fall through the gap in the Human Rights' protection system. Identity related questions are at the most intimate level of respect for human dignity, the right of each individual to participate in "a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized" (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 28). They are at the root of violence and peace issues, of poverty and welfare. Fear of "relativism", although justified, long prevented us from considering each individual as a subject of his or her rights within a concrete environment.

Universality therefore remained an abstract idea, since it can only become concrete through the right of each individual to live his or her humanity. Universality was thought to be above culture, but it is cultures that need to invent it, to develop it through demanding dialog. "Cultures" do not dialog, because such homogenous entities don't exist. It is women and men who do, as holders and seekers of this universality that can only be gathered and collected through critical sharing of heritages and cultural experiences.

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