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Abstract
Within the debate on climate change and human rights, the field of culture, or cultural heritage in particular, plays a marginal role. At first glance, this seems reasonable, given the range of more concrete challenges people face in the context of climate change. However, the protection of cultural heritage is an important goal in its own right, even against the backdrop of other seemingly more pressing tasks. A human-rights-based approach to the debate on cultural heritage and climate change, it is argued, reinforces the international community's obligations to take necessary mitigation activities. Cultural rights and the corresponding duties, especially those under Article 15(1)(a) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, have the potential to provide an effective additional normative basis for the protection of cultural heritage from the adverse consequences of climate change.
Notes
1 The petitions concerned the Belize Barrier Reef, Huascaran National Park and Sagarmatha National Park and were filed together with a report on Australia's Great Barrier Reef; see petitions and press release at < http://www.climatelaw.org>.
2CitationThe Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention are developed and regularly updated by the World Heritage Committee. They contain precise criteria for the implementation of the Convention, including for the inscription of properties on the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger; see < http://whc.unesco.org/en/guidelines/>.
3 Mitigation is defined as ‘an anthropogenic intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases’. For further elaboration, see Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Working Group III (Citation2001).
4 See, for example, Principle 15 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and Article 3 (3) of the 1992 UNFCCC, Article 3 (3).
5 Operational Directives for the Implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Adopted by the General Assembly of the States Parties to the Convention at its fourth session, 8 June 2012, < http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/doc/src/ICH-Operational_Directives-4.GA-EN.doc>.
6 For elaboration on this relationship, refer, for example, to Francioni (2011, 14f).
7 An often-cited case is Ominayak, Chief of the Lubicon Lake Band v Canada, in which the HRC held that the destruction of the environment caused by oil and gas exploitation constitutes a violation of Article 27; see HRC, Communication No 167/1984, UN Doc CCPR/C/38/D/167/1984 (10 May 1990).
8 For a general discussion of the issue of obligations under the ICESCR see, among others, van Hoof (Citation1984), Alston and Quinn (Citation1987) and Scheinin (Citation2001).
9 < http://treaties.un.org/>, accessed 30 July 2013.
The author wishes to thank the participants of the Panel Climate Change and Human Rights: A Common Research Agenda? at the 54th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association as well as the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions on earlier drafts.
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Notes on contributors
Sylvia Maus
Sylvia Maus, LL.M., is the Scientific Coordinator and Researcher at the UNESCO Chair in International Relations at Technische Universität Dresden. Email: [email protected]