Cultural and language rights of minorities and indigenous peoples

ABSTRACT

This article introduces the special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights on the cultural and linguistic rights of minorities and indigenous peoples. The right to cultural life is at the core of all human identities but indigenous peoples and minorities have particular rights to protect their collective identities, which are more easily eroded by dominant culture(s) or due to harmful practices such as involuntary assimilation. The conference brought together scholars and activists to examine such threats in practice and to discuss the role of law and social mobilisation by minorities and indigenous peoples in response. The impact of recent events such as Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter transnational mobilisation are discussed in this introduction to illustrate how these major contemporary events also relate to cultural rights. The article provides an overview of the inter-disciplinary articles included in the special issue, which focus on key illustrative case studies of threats to cultural and linguistic rights across regions. The UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage is a focus in several of the articles, as is with the role of international human rights law in protecting cultural and linguistic rights.

KEYWORDS:

• Minorities
• indigenous peoples
• cultural rights
• language rights
• intangible cultural heritage

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The conference was organised jointly by the Human Rights Consortium and Institute of Modern Languages Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London, and Brunel University Law School. The conference was supported by the Open World Research Initiative (OWRI) project entitled ‘Cross-language dynamics: reshaping community’, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The conference organisers are grateful for additional funding from the Cassal Trust.

2 See UN International Year of Indigenous Languages: https://en.iyil2019.org/; UNESCO, Strategic Outcome Document of the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages, UN Doc. 40 C/68 (15 November 2019).

3 Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Education, Language and the Human Rights of Minorities Twelfth Session of the Forum on Minority Issues’, available at: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Minority/Pages/Session12.aspx (accessed 8 October 2020).

4 Deena R Hurwitz and Ellen-Rose Kambel, ‘Redressing language-based exclusion and punishment in education and the Language Friendly School initiative’ (2020) 4 Global Campus Human Rights Journal 5–24; Stéphanie Chouinard and Martin Normand. ‘Talk COVID to Me: Language Rights and Canadian Government Responses to the Pandemic.’ Canadian Journal of Political Science. Revue Canadienne De Science Politique 1–6. 28 Apr. 2020.

5 Council of Europe, Minority languages matter - particularly in a health crisis, 2020, available at https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/covid-19-minority-languages (accessed 8 October 2020)

6 European Roma Rights Centre, Roma Rights in the Time of Covid, European Roma Rights Centre, September 2020, available at http://www.errc.org/uploads/upload_en/file/5265_file1_roma-rights-in-the-time-of-covid..pdf (accessed 8 October 2020)

7 Katharine Quarmby, ‘“A disaster waiting to happen” - Traveller communities buckling from the impact of the pandemic’, Open Democracy, 4 May 2020, available at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/a-disaster-waiting-to-happen-traveller-communities-buckling-from-the-impact-of-the-pandemic/ (accessed 8 October 2020)

8 For the full text of the criminal complaint see: https://uniglobalunion.org/sites/default/files/imce/english_denuncia_presidente_icc_final.pdf (accessed 8 October 2020).

9 ‘Bolsonaro “se aproveita” da pandemia para eliminar indígenas, diz cacique Raoni’, O Globo, 5 June 2020, available at https://oglobo.globo.com/sociedade/bolsonaro-se-aproveita-da-pandemia-para-eliminar-indigenas-diz-cacique-raoni-24464578 (accessed 8 October 2020).

10 UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, ‘COVID-19 and Indigenous peoples’, n.d., https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/covid-19.html (accessed 21 November 2020). The practice of isolation may not always be available considering, for example, complex networks of trade and commerce and the extent of land invasions, even if certain populations would have wished to do so.

11 UN Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Issues, ‘Indigenous Peoples and COVID-19, A Guidance Note for the UN System prepared by the UN Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Issues’, 23 April 2020, in https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2020/04/Indigenous-peoples-and-COVID_IASG_23.04.2020-EN.pdf (accessed 21 November 2020).

12 UN OHCHR, ‘COVID-19 and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, What is the Impact of COVID-19 on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights?’, 29 June 2020, in https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IPeoples/OHCHRGuidance_COVID19_IndigenouspeoplesRights.pdf (accessed 21 November 2020).

13 Anastasia Moloney, ‘Ecuador's Amazon tribes turn to tech to track COVID-19 cases’, Reuters, 21 July 2020, available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-ecuador-indigenous/ecuadors-amazon-tribes-turn-to-tech-to-track-covid-19-cases-idUSKCN24M30Y (accessed 8 October 2020).

14 UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, ‘UN/DESA Policy Brief #70: The Impact of COVID-19 on Indigenous Peoples’, 8 May 2020, in https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/publication/un-desa-policy-brief-70-the-impact-of-covid-19-on-indigenous-peoples/ (accessed 23 November 2020).

15 Supra note 12, UN OHCHR ‘COVID-19 and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, What is the Impact of COVID-19 on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights?’; p. 3.

16 Supra note 12, UN OHCHR ‘COVID-19 and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, What is the Impact of COVID-19 on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights?’; pp. 2–3.

17 See also the Operational Directives for the Implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, especially Chapter III. Participation in the implementation of the Convention; available at https://ich.unesco.org/en/directives (accessed 8 October 2020).

18 Cheryl Bellisario, ‘Indigenous Languages are Essential’, Talking Humanities, 15 November 2018. https://talkinghumanities.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2018/11/15/indigenous-languages-are-essential/ (accessed 8 October 2020).

19 Native Spirit Film Festival: https://nativespiritfoundation.org/

20 Open World Research Initiative (OWRI) Cross-Language Dynamics project https://crosslanguagedynamics.blogs.sas.ac.uk/

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katerina Hatzikidi

Katerina Hatzikidi is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Tübingen. She is a social anthropologist (DPhil Oxford) interested in questions of race and ethnicity, heritage, land rights, religious movements, populism, and conspiracy theories. She is a Research Affiliate at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, and Associate Fellow at the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London.

Corinne Lennox

Corinne Lennox is Senior Lecturer in Human Rights at the School of Advanced Study, University of London and Co-Director of the Human Rights Consortium. Her research focuses on issues of minority and indigenous rights protection, civil society mobilisation for human rights and on human rights and development. She has been an advisor on minority and indigenous rights to governments, the UNDP and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Alexandra Xanthaki

Alexandra Xanthaki is a Professor at Brunel University London and an expert on the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples in international law. Currently, she is working on a H2020 project on the rights of migrants in Europe.