Abstract
Cultural rights are today associated with the maintenance and promotion of diverse ways of life. This chapter begins by tracing the evolution of cultural rights in human rights law, focusing on how culture itself has been conceptualized. It then identifies and discusses some of the most significant examples of cultural rights, drawing on the major human rights treaties as well as more specialized instruments regarding minority and Indigenous rights. The major parts of the chapter focus on the main philosophical issues raised by cultural rights, including questions about their justification and scope, about how culture should be understood, the minorities within minorities problem, as well as about whether cultural rights can properly qualify as human rights, especially if they are group rights. It is argued that philosophers have so far failed to provide a convincing account of the justification of cultural human rights, but that many of the most influential criticisms of cultural rights also fail. In particular, I suggest that only a minority of cultural rights are group rights and that this need not disqualify even them from being human rights.
Original language | English (Ireland) |
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Title of host publication | The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Human Rights |
Editors | Kerri Woods, Jesse Tomalty |
Publisher | Routledge |
Publication status | Accepted/In press - 2025 |