Study On The Protection Of Cultural Rights In International Law

Cultural rights are one of the fundamental human rights, the nature of which advocates letting up on all kinds of cultural traditions and creativity in human community. Cultural rights are the core of tolerance, diversity and pluralism policy, and are the rights of the social members to keep their difference and diversity. As a premise of respect to the humans'dignity, cultural rights are critical in realizing the basic value of human and keeping the peaceful and stable development of the international and national community.The protection of cultural rights in international law unfolds around three problems:Why should we protect cultural rights in international? How should we protect cultural rights in international law and reinforce the protection in the economic globalization era? How should China strengthen the protection of cultural rights?Why should we protect cultural rights in international law? The predicament faced by cultural rights all the time is the vagueness and confusion of their contents and nature, which have a strong negative impact on the protection of cultural rights. So, we should define them first of all. Chapter1clarifies the normative content and nature of cultural rights on the base of analysing the relationship between culture and human rights. Cultural rights have definite normative content, and are fundamental human rights with dual character. Cultural rights and other human rights have a relationship of mutual promotion, but cultural rights should also be restricted. Chapter2deals with the types and substances of subjects of the cultural rights. The dissertations hold that individual is the primary subjects of rights, and demonstrate that minority group should also be the subjects of rights. State is the most basic subjects of duty and non-state-actor such as TNC is increasingly important in performing the protecion duty. Chapter3answers the question why we should protect cultural rights in international law, that is the necessity of the protection of cultural rights in international law. The dissertations expound in two perspectives:the development tendency of modern international law, and the preservation of cultural diversity. Firstly, the humanization of modern international law requires the protection of cultural rights. International law plays an important role in the protection of cultural rights by supplementing and supervising the national protection to improve the peaceful and stable development of the international and national community. Secondly, the international protection of cultural rights is the realistic demand of the preservation of cultural diversity which is the value goal of modern international law. Cultural diversity is an important goal and thinking background of modern international community, and has been an important value goal of international law development. But the preservation of cultural diversity faces adverse conditions. Cultural rights can provide a new perspective and thinking for cultural diversity preservation. So the protection of cultural rights in international law is necessary.How should we protect cultural rights in international law and reinforce the protection in the Economic globalization era? Chapter4studies the global protection mechanism of cultural righs and relevant practices. The global protection mechanism is based on the United Nations system, and NGOs also play an important role in the protection of cultural righs. The principal organs of the UN, the UN human rights treaty bodies, and the UN specialized agencies such as UNESCO constitute a multilevel cultural rights protection mechanism. The practices of the above organs improve the development of the jurisprudence of cultural rights protection. Chapter5covers the regional cultural rights protection. Regional human rights protection is an important driving force and necessary process of international human rights protection, and is critical in cultural rights protection. The chapter ayalyzes the provisions and protection mechanisms in European, American and African human rights protection systems. Chapter6researches the challenges brought to cultural rights protection by economic globalization and the improvement of cultural rights protection in international law. Economic globalization has a big impact on international human rights protection. So we should reinforce the cultural rights protection in international law. But there are many defects in the protection system which include:the vagueness in the legal basis and the divergence in the idea; weakness and compromise in the implementation mechanism, and lack of mandatory characteristic in the operation; the unsystematic organization, resource replication, imbalance and inefficiency. Under the background, cultural rights protection in international law should be reinforced by improving international legislation of cultural rights, strengthening the judicial and mandatory characteristic, developing towards the systematic and balanced direction.How should China strengthen the protection of cultural rights? Chapter7discusses the necessity and significance of strengthening cultural rights protection in China at present, the conditions of China's performing the state obligation according to the relevant international human rights treaties, and the path choices and measures China should make to strengthen cultural rights protection in the future.The conclusion summarizes the main points of the dissertations, and reaches conclusions on the questions of the normative content of cultural rights, the necessity of the cultural rights protection in international law, the corresponding mechanisms and the practices, the challenges brought by the economic globalization and the improvement of the protection, and China's path choice and measures.