Cultural Heritage and Human Rights

The safeguarding of cultural heritage and the protection of human rights constitute separate branches of international law, with different origins and different historical development. However, the far-reaching development of international cultural heritage law in the past half century has progressively infiltrated the field of human rights, developing what we may call ‘the human dimension of cultural heritage’. This article reconstructs the process of mutual influence of these two branches of international law by way of an analysis of the most representative sectors on international cultural heritage law, including protection of cultural property in war time, restitution and return of stolen and illegally exported cultural objects, the protection of cultural heritage of outstanding universal value (‘world heritage’), and the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage and of cultural diversity. At a time when armed bands and terrorists deliberately destroy cultural property of great importance for humanity and angry crowds demolish monuments memorializing controversial figures of the past, connecting human rights and cultural heritage becomes an ever more necessary condition for a dialogue among the peoples and, in the end, the foundation for international peace and security.