<%-- Page Title--%> Human Rights advocacy <%-- End Page Title--%>

July 18, 2004

Promoting human rights through cultural liberty

A.H. Monjurul Kabir

Universal human rights do not impose one cultural standard, rather one legal standard of minimum protection necessary for human dignity. As a legal standard adopted through the United Nations, universal human rights represent the hard-won consensus of the international community, not the cultural imperialism of any particular region or set of traditions. Like most areas of international law, universal human rights are a contemporary achievement, new to all cultures. Very interestingly, this year's Human Development Report (HDR 2004), the flagship human development publication of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is on Cultural Liberty in Today's Diverse World. In a pioneering examination of identity politics around the world, the report argues that cultural freedoms should be embraced as basic human rights and as necessities for the development of the increasingly diverse societies of the 21st century,

Liberty in cultural diversity
In our diverse world more than two-thirds of countries have minority groups that make up more than 10% of their population and nearly a billion people belong to groups subject to some form of exclusion. The HDR 2004 Cultural Liberty in Today's Diverse World argues that states must actively devise multicultural policies to prevent discrimination on cultural grounds religious, ethnic and linguistic. The expansion of cultural freedoms, not suppression, is the only sustainable option to promote stability, democracy and human development within and across societies.

Such policies are not always simple, but many countries are making headway. The Report debunks the myths that have been used to deny expansions of cultural freedoms, showing that diversity is not a threat to state unity, not the source of inevitable "clashes", not an obstacle to development. Instead, it is at the core of human developmentthe ability of people to choose who they are. The Report presents a path-breaking framework to examine issues that leap from the headlines to the forefront of the international policy agenda: migration, predatory extremism, customary law and cultural diversity.

Human Development Report 2004 features an analysis of the vital links between human development and cultural liberty; identifies living mode exclusions as well as political, economic and social exclusions (participation exclusion) faced by culturally identified groups; presents cutting-edge multicultural approaches covering power-sharing, religious and secular states, language policy, legal pluralism and affirmative action; analyzes the rise of coercive movements for cultural domination and their challenges to democracies; examines key areas of policy for cultural diversity and globalization, including traditional knowledge, trade in cultural goods and migration. In its 15th year, the annual Human Development Report continues to frame debates on the most pressing challengesnew and oldfor enabling people to live full and creative lives.

The report was overseen by UNDP Human Development Report Director Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, the lead author, and opens with an agenda-setting introductory chapter by Amartya Sen, the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics and one of the originators of UNDP's Human Development Reports.

"Rather than glorify unreasoned endorsement of inherited traditions, or warn the world about the alleged inevitability of the clash of civilizations, the human development perspective demands that attention go to the importance of freedom in cultural spheres and to ways of defending and expanding the cultural freedoms that people can enjoy," Sen writes.

Cultural rights, precursor to cultural liberty
Every human being has the right to culture, including the right to enjoy and develop cultural life and identity. Cultural rights, however, are not unlimited. The right to culture is limited at the point at which it infringes on another human right. No right can be used at the expense or destruction of another, in accordance with international law. This means that cultural rights cannot be invoked or interpreted in such a way as to justify any act leading to the denial or violation of other human rights and fundamental freedoms. As such, claiming cultural relativism as an excuse to violate or deny human rights is an abuse of the right to culture.

There are legitimate, substantive limitations on cultural practices, even on well-entrenched traditions. For example, no culture today can legitimately claim a right to practise slavery. Despite its practice in many cultures throughout history, slavery today cannot be considered legitimate, legal, or part of a cultural legacy entitled to protection in any way. To the contrary, all forms of slavery, including contemporary slavery-like practices, are a gross violation of human rights under international law.

Similarly, cultural rights do not justify torture, murder, genocide, discrimination on grounds of sex, race, language or religion, or violation of any of the other universal human rights and fundamental freedoms established in international law. Any attempts to justify such violations on the basis of culture have no validity under international law. Rather cultural freedom is a very strong weapon to fight poverty and ensure human development "If the world is to reach the Millennium Development Goals and ultimately eradicate poverty, it must first successfully confront the challenge of how to build inclusive, culturally diverse societies," Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator of UNDP writes in his foreword to the HDR.

Religious freedom and public policy
States also have a responsibility to protect rights and secure freedoms for all their members and not discriminate on grounds of religion. Non-discriminatory states should protect religious freedom and individual choice:

Everyone should have the right to criticize, revise or challenge the dominance of a particular interpretation of core beliefs. Clergy or other religious hierarchies should have the same status as other citizens. People of one religion must be allowed to be responsibly critical of the practices and beliefs of other religions. Individuals must be free not only to criticize the religion into which they are born, but also to reject it for another or to remain without one.

Protecting cultural diversity through human rights
Human rights are neither representative of, nor oriented towards, one culture to the exclusion of others. Universal human rights reflect the dynamic, coordinated efforts of the international community to achieve and advance a common standard and international system of law to protect human dignity.

The flexibility of human rights to be relevant to diverse cultures is facilitated by the establishment of minimum standards and the incorporation of cultural rights. The instruments establish minimum standards for economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights. Within this framework, states have maximum room for cultural variation without diluting or compromising the minimum standards of human rights established by law. These minimum standards are in fact quite high, requiring from the State a very high level of performance in the field of human rights.

The Vienna Declaration on Human Rights provides explicit consideration for culture in human rights promotion and protection, stating that "the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind". This is deliberately acknowledged in the context of the duty of States to promote and protect human rights regardless of their cultural systems. While its importance is recognized, cultural consideration in no way diminishes States' human rights obligations.

Most directly, human rights facilitate respect for and protection of cultural diversity and integrity, through the establishment of cultural rights embodied in instruments of human rights law. These include: the International Bill of Rights; the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; the Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice; the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief; the Declaration on the Principles of International Cultural Cooperation; the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities; the Declaration on the Right to Development; the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families; and the ILO Convention No. 169 on the Rights of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples.

Human rights which relate to cultural diversity and integrity encompass a wide range of protections, including: the right to cultural participation; the right to enjoy the arts; conservation, development and diffusion of culture; protection of cultural heritage; freedom for creative activity; protection of persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities; freedom of assembly and association; the right to education; freedom of thought, conscience or religion; freedom of opinion and expression; and the principle of non-discrimination. All these issues are particularly pertinent for Bangladesh. In fact, the very spirit of the war of liberation of 1971 was to establish a multi-cultural democracy free from exploitations of all forms. The Human Development Report is a strong reminder of that commitment.

A.H. Monjurul Kabir, a human rights advocate and governance analyst.