Beyond State Sovereignty: The Protection of Cultural Heritage as a Shared Interest of Humanity

Abstract

This chapter explores the emergence of cultural heritage as part of the shared interest of humanity, with the consequent need for international law to safeguard it in its material and living manifestations, including the cultural communities that create, perform and maintain it. It identifies three separate facets of such articulation. These are the protection of cultural heritage and cultural groups as part of the protection of human rights; the emergence of the concept of individual criminal responsibility for cultural crimes; and the emerging notion of "cultural diversity" as a general interest for whose protection the international community "as a whole" must mobilize. International law has not remained indifferent to this dynamic of culture within the State and between the States. Protection of minorities, as addressed in post First World War peace treaties and ad hoc treaties, has helped deconstruct the sovereign State by legitimizing the claim to an international status of culturally distinct groups.

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