Human rights are at the heart of UNESCO's work in the fields of education, science and culture. Conceived from an international human rights legal framework, this publication combines insights into the content, scope of application and corresponding state obligations of these rights with analyses of issues relating to their implementation.--Publisher's description.
This book explores the question of whether the ideal right to science and culture exists. It proposes that the human right to science and culture is of a utopian character and argues for the necessity of the existence of such a right by developing a philosophical project situated in postmodernity, based on the assumption of ’thinking in terms of excendence’. The book brings a novel and critical approach to human rights in general and to the human right to science and culture in particular. It offers a new way of thinking about access to knowledge in the postanalogue, postmodern society. Inspired by twentieth-century critical theorists such as Levinas, Gadamer, Bauman and Habermas, the book begins by using excendence as a way of thinking about the individual, speech and text. It considers paradigms arising from postanalogue society, revealing the neglected normative content of the human right to science and culture and proposes a morality, dignity and solidarity situated in a postmodern context. Finally the book concludes by responding to questions on happiness, dignity and that which is social. Including an Annex which presents the author’s private project related to thinking in the context of the journey from ’myth to reason’, this book is of interest to researchers in the fields of philosophy and the theory of law, human rights, intellectual property and social theory.
A human right to higher education was included in the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which came into force in 1976. Yet the world has changed significantly since the ICESCR was drafted. State legislation and policies have generally followed a neoliberal trajectory, shifting the perception of higher education from being a public good to being a commodity able to be bought and sold. This model has been criticized, particularly because it generally reinforces social inequality. At the same time, attaining higher education has become more important than ever before. Higher education is a prerequisite for many jobs and those who have attained higher education enjoy improved life circumstances. This book seeks to determine: Is there still a place for the human right to higher education in the current international context? In seeking to answer this question, this book compares and contrasts two general theoretical models that are used to frame higher education policy: the market-based approach and the human rights-based approach. In the process, it contributes to an understanding of the likely effectiveness of market-based versus human rights-based approaches to higher education provision in terms of teaching and learning. This understanding should enable the development of more improved, sophisticated, and ultimately successful higher education policies. This book contends that a human rights-based approach to higher education policy is more likely to enable the achievement of higher education purposes than a market-based approach. In reaching this conclusion, the book identifies and addresses some strategic considerations of relevance for advocates of a human rights-based approach in this context.
Collective cultural rights are commonly perceived as the most neglected or least developed category of human rights. Cultural Rights as Collective Rights – An International Law Perspective endeavours to challenge this view and offers a comprehensive, critical analysis of recent developments in distinct areas of international law and jurisprudence, from every region of the world, in relation to the scope, legal content, and enforceability of such rights. Leading international scholars explore the conceptualisation and operationalisation of collective cultural rights as human rights, encompassing community rights, and discuss the ways in which such rights may collide with other, mostly individual, human rights. As such, Cultural Rights as Collective Rights – An International Law Perspective offers a cross-cutting and original overview on how the protection, recognition and enforcement of collective cultural rights affect the development, changes and formation of general international law norms.
This book examines the ways in which law can be used to structure the return of indigenous sacred cultural heritage to indigenous communities, referred to as repatriation in this volume. In particular, it aims at developing legal structures that align repatriation with contemporary international human rights standards. To do so, it gathers the most valuable lessons learned from different repatriation laws and frameworks adopted in the United States and Canada. In both countries, very different ways of approaching repatriation have been used for several decades, highlighting the context-dependent nature of repatriation. The volume is divided into four parts, looking first at international law, then at the national legal landscape in the United States, followed by Canada, before the different repatriation models are evaluated against the backdrop of human rights law standards. Emphasis is placed not only on repatriation-specific legislation but also on the legal context in which it was developed and operates. In turn, the fourth part develops various models on the basis of these experiences that can be aligned with contemporary indigenous and cultural rights. The book ends by considering the models’ suitability for international repatriation and the lessons that can be learned from them. The primary audience includes those addressing the legal hurdles to repatriation, be they researchers, policymakers, communities, or museums.
This book considers the philosophical, sociological and legal implications of the distinction between universal human rights accorded to all because of their membership of the human species, and the more particularistic ‘citizenship’ rights, accorded to those who are members of a political community. Contributions come from a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields including education, law and political philosophy, as well as from practitioner perspectives. Contributions address the three themes of firstly whether human rights and citizenship are complementary or competing conceptions, secondly the justifications for human rights, and thirdly human rights and citizenship in different cultural contexts. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Cambridge Journal of Education.
Education and International Development, 2000-2020: A Constructivist Critique of the One-size-fits-all Liberal Model advances the claim that there exists a liberal theory of international education. Ian Wash argues that the assumed harmony of this model is the main source of dispute in the field of education and international development. The liberal thinking behind the aspirations for education, the political levers necessary for its effective governance, and the ideas behind the policies all have contributed towards growing tensions that prevented international education from achieving optimal functionality. Through a qualitative discourse analysis of the key policy documents produced between 2000 and 2020, Wash reveals how the liberal model was discursively constructed as a grand narrative of three acts that chronicles the vision, process and outcomes of international education. Such a rendering brings an understanding of the hidden conflicts essential for finding a resolution to this policy puzzle, thereby improving the prosperity and wellbeing of those in poorer countries.
Provides a comprehensive examination of the field of International Cultural Heritage Law, Explores links with other areas of public and private international law, as well as analysing how cultural heritage law is contributing to the development of international law as a whole, Examines the implementation of cultural heritage law in a wide range of regional contexts including Africa, Americas, Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East Book jacket.
This book can serve as valuable resource for educational practitioners in higher education insofar as it provides them with an enhanced awareness of strategies that are being used to manage problems commonly faced in multiple educational settings.
The effective promotion, protection and fulfilment of economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights is an important but under-explored component of international human rights law, of which ESC rights form an essential part. They are fundamental to the dignity of every person. At the international level ESC rights are protected in several international instruments, the most comprehensive being the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the Covenant) ratified by a majority of States. However, claims of violations of ESC rights are treated less seriously. This book subjects ESC rights protected in the Covenant to a deeper analysis in light of the practice of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights while taking into account other relevant sources of ESC rights at national, regional and international levels. It also analyses key issues relevant to ESC rights, with particular emphasis on various themes including State obligations; non-State actor's obligations; women's ESC rights; domestic protection of ESC rights; and State reservations to ESC rights. The book further makes a thorough examination of the rights to work, health, and education. By so doing, it demonstrates that ESC rights are justiciable and must not be marginalised. The book also brings together a collection of essential materials on ESC rights needed to understand and analyse the subject. Written by an international human rights scholar, this timely work will be of value to all those interested in human rights and international law.
