Protection of Human Rights to the City and Preservation of Historic Urban Landscapes: Ways to Coherence

Abstract

Abstract Presuming that principles of international law reflect common values and moral attitudes of the humankind, the author analyses a mutual dissociation of three fields of international law – human rights to the city, rights to cultural heritage, and preservation of historic urban landscapes (HULs) – and looks for legal models of their cohesion. Based on analysis of legal and doctrinal texts of the UN, the UNESCO, the UNECE, the Council of Europe and the ICOMOS, the author states that since historic HULs usually are both heritage sites and habitats, people related multichotomous values and interests to them. Human rights to the city are equality, non-discrimination, social cohesion, security, protection for vulnerable persons and groups, right to public mobility, housing, education, healthy environment, etc. Legislation on culture and heritage is focusing on cultural identity, diversity, and continuity; it is paying less attention to human, civil, and communal rights, therefore may even pose a threat...