The Derry/Londonderry Report on Upholding the Human Right to Culture in Post-Conflict Societies

The Derry/Londonderry Report on Upholding the Human Right to Culture in Post-Conflict Societies The Derry/Londonderry Report on Upholding the Human Right to Culture in Post-Conflict Societies March 2014 ISBN 978-1-910219-13-3 © Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission Temple Court, 39 North Street, Belfast BT1 1NA Tel: (028) 9024 3987 Fax: (028) 9024 7844 Email: [email protected] Online: www.nihrc.org twitter.com/nihrc facebook.com/nihrc youtube.com/nihrc The Derry/Londonderry Report on Upholding the Human Right to Culture in Post-Conflict Societies Foreword The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (the Commission) is mandated as a national human rights institution to uphold all of the human rights in the international human rights treaties. These include the right to culture. However, the Commission has found that little attention has been paid to cultural rights in human rights discourse. In particular, the promotion and protection of cultural rights in societies emerging from conflict is a neglected area. Little guidance exists for States, cultural stakeholders and such human rights actors as national human rights institutions as to how best to uphold cultural rights in such contexts. This gap is of particular concern for the promotion of cultural rights in Northern Ireland, a society that is emerging from decades of conflict. It is in order to redress this gap in literature and policy guidance that the Commission is publishing the present report. The report is set against the backdrop of the designation of Derry/Londonderry as UK City of Culture 2013. The experience of that city as City of Culture is used as a case study in relation to the realisation of cultural rights in a post-conflict society. As part of the UK City of Culture initiative, the Commission organised a conference and consultation on cultural rights in divided and post-conflict societies in association with the University of Ulster and in co-operation with the UN Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights, Ms Farida Shaheed. This event took place in Derry/Londonderry from 1 to 3 July 2013 and the discussions that took place informed the finalisation of the current report as well as the attached recommendations. (See Annex A for a full list of participants.) The research for the report was led on behalf of the Commission by Dr Elizabeth Craig, with the contributions of Stratis-Andreas Efthymiou and Ciara O’Connell, all of the University of Sussex. The researchers and those who participated in the Derry/Londonderry meetings are owed the profound thanks of the Commission. We particularly appreciate the enthusiastic support and engagement on the part of the Special Rapporteur, Ms Shaheed. The report concludes with a set of recommendations that are intended to contribute to the protection of cultural rights in post-conflict societies internationally. We hope that you will find the Derry/Londonderry Report, with its conclusions and recommendations, to be of value in clarifying the content and the application of cultural rights in the context of societies emerging from conflict. We trust that the conclusions and recommendations will be of assistance in guiding States and all human rights actors in charting a path that best honours these crucial human rights. The former Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, Professor Michael O’Flaherty, was the architect of this initiative and we are indebted to him for his insight and leadership in this innovative area. John Corey Interim Chair, Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission March 2014 5 The Derry/Londonderry Report on Upholding the Human Right to Culture in Post-Conflict Societies Table of contents page 1. The International Legal Framework: Cultural Rights as Human Rights ...................................................................................... 1 1.1 Cultural Rights in the International Bill of Rights ..................................... 1 1.2 Cultural Rights as an Integral Part of Minority Rights .............................. 6 1.3 Cultural Rights and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples ............................................................................... 8 1.4 Giving Effect to Cultural Rights Provisions in Post-Conflict Societies ....... 9 2. Rights to Cultural Heritage and Diversity of Cultural Expression: Recent International Trends ............................................. 11 2.1 Rights to Cultural Heritage ................................................................... 11 2.2 Rights to Cultural Expression and Diversity ............................................ 12 2.3 Rights to Cultural Heritage and Expression in Post-Conflict Societies...... 13 3. Historical and Cultural Narratives in Post-Conflict Societies: Developing a More Inclusive Symbolic Landscape .............................. 14 3.1 The Role of Cultural Symbols ................................................................. 15 3.2 Participation .......................................................................................... 16 3.3 Improvement of Lives ............................................................................ 18 3.4 Further Challenges for the Right to Culture in Post-Conflict Societies ..... 19 4. Case-Study on Cultural Rights: The Derry/Londonderry City of Culture Initiative ................................................................................... 20 4.1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 20 4.2 Approach to the Research ..................................................................... 20 4.3 The City of Culture Bid ........................................................................... 21 7 The Derry/Londonderry Report on Upholding the Human Right to Culture in Post-Conflict Societies 4.4 Realising the Right to Participate in Cultural Life: The Opportunities Presented by the City of Culture Programme .......................................... 22 4.5 Challenges to the Realisation of Cultural Rights ..................................... 23 4.6 Developing a New Story ........................................................................ 27 4.7 Conclusion: Looking Beyond 2013 ......................................................... 28 5. The Derry/Londonderry Conclusions and Recommendations on Upholding the Human Right to Culture in Post-Conflict Societies ....... 29 Annex A ....................................................................................................... 31 8 The Derry/Londonderry Report on Upholding the Human Right to Culture in Post-Conflict Societies The International Legal Framework: 1 Cultural Rights as Human Rights Culture is understood for the purpose of this report as a ‘shared system of meaning that people use to make sense of the world’ that is expressed in a variety of different ways.1 According to Ross, ‘[a]ttention to symbols, rituals and the narratives that members of a group use to make sense of the world is key to understanding how culture shapes their lives and their collective behaviours.’2 It has furthermore been argued that participants of culture ‘experience their traditions, stories, rituals and symbols, tools and material living conditions through shared, albeit contested and contestable, accounts.’3 It is clear that in post-conflict and divided societies cultural expression can serve both as a marker of division and as a way of transcending difference.4 This report therefore focuses in particular on the implementation of cultural rights in a way that either reinforces existing cultural narratives or that provides an opportunity for broadening understanding of what it means to speak of a right to culture.5 The report considers cultural rights as a separate category of rights to those rights provisions dealing exclusively with education and minority and indigenous languages. Whilst it is clear that education, language and culture are inextricably connected, the focus of this report is on cultural rights as a category of rights that historically has been neglected by the international human rights community. 1.1 Cultural Rights in the International Bill of Rights This section of the report focuses specifically on the right of everyone to participate in cultural life and the right of those belonging to minority groups to enjoy their own culture as universally recognised rights. (a) Right to Participate in Cultural Life – Art 15 ICESCR The most detailed elaboration of a human rights approach to ‘culture’ is found in the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ General Comment on the Right of Everyone to Take Part in Cultural Life.6 The view of culture adopted in the General Comment is one that is ‘broad, inclusive… encompassing all manifestations of human existence. The expression “cultural life” is an explicit reference to culture as a living process, historical, dynamic and evolving, with a past, a present and a future.’7 It stresses that culture should not be seen ‘as a series of isolated manifestations or hermetic compartments, but as an interactive process, whereby individuals and communities, while preserving their specificities and purposes, give expression to the culture of humanity.’8 There is 1 Marc Howard Ross, Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict (Cambridge University Press 2007) 2, who draws upon Geertz’s definition of culture as “an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by

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