Federico Lenzerini - Böcker

Almost fifty years have passed since the adoption of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (the UNESCO World Heritage Convention). With its 194 States Parties, it is the most widely ratified convention within the family of UNESCO treaties on the protection of cultural heritage. The success of this Convention and its almost universal acceptance by the international community of states is due to the great appeal that recognising certain properties as “world heritage” has for national governments. Since the publication of the first Commentary, new problems have arisen in the management of world heritage sites. It has become increasingly difficult to properly monitor the conservation of the ever-growing mass of sites inscribed in the World Heritage List, and to resolve disputes over the formal designation of contested world heritage properties - a problem that has led to the withdrawal of the United States and Israel from UNESCO. New frontiers are now being explored for the expansion of the world heritage idea over marine areas beyond national jurisdiction, and the monopoly of the State in the identification, delineation, and presentation of world heritage properties is being increasingly challenged in the name of indigenous peoples' rights and by local communities claiming ownership over contested cultural sites. At the same time, the regime of world heritage protection has infiltrated other areas of international law, especially international economic law, investment arbitration, and the area of international criminal law. This second edition critically examines the World Heritage Convention against this dynamic evolution of international heritage law to help academics, lawyers, diplomats, and officials interpret and apply the norms of the Convention after half a century of uninterrupted implementing practice by State Parties and Treaty Bodies.

The volume brings together a group of renowned legal experts and activists from different parts of the world who, from international and comparative perspectives, consider the right of indigenous peoples to reparations for breaches of their individual and collective rights. The first part of the book is devoted to general aspects of this important question, providing a comprehensive assessment of the relevant international legal framework and including overviews of the topic of reparations for human rights violations, the status of indigenous peoples in international law and the vision of reparations as conceived by the peoples concerned. The second part embraces a comprehensive investigation of the relevant practice at the international, regional, and national level, including some pertinent, in-depth case-studies, offering a comparative perspective on the ways in which the right of indigenous peoples to reparation is realized worldwide. The contributions forming the second part also examine the best practices for granting effective reparations, according to the ideologies and expectations of the communities concerned. The global picture painted by these contributions offers a view of the status of relevant international law that is synthesised in the final chapter, which also prescribes the best practices and strategies to be adopted in order to maximize concrete opportunities for indigenous peoples to obtain effective redress. As a whole, the volume offers a comprehensive vision of its subject matter in international and comparative law, with a practical approach aimed at supporting legal academics, administrators, and practitioners concerned in improving the avenues and modalities of reparations for indigenous peoples.

Published in concomitance with the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, this volume brings together a group of renowned legal experts and activists from different parts of the world who, from international and comparative perspectives, investigate the right of indigenous peoples to reparation for breaches of their individual and collective rights. The first part of the book is devoted to general aspects of this important matter, providing a comprehensive assessment of the relevant international legal framework and including overviews of the topic of reparations for human rights violations, the status of indigenous peoples in international law, and the vision of reparations as conceived by the communities concerned. The second part embraces a comprehensive investigation of the relevant practice at the international, regional, and national level, examining the best practices of reparations according to the ideologies and expectations of indigenous peoples and offering a comparative perspective on the ways in which the right of these peoples to redress for the injuries suffered is realized worldwide. The global picture painted by these contributions provides a view of the status of relevant international law that is synthesized in the two final chapters of the book, which include a concrete example of how a judicial claim for reparation is to be structured and prescribes the best practices and strategies to be adopted in order to maximize the opportunities for indigenous peoples to obtain effective redress. As a whole, this volume offers a comprehensive vision of its subject matter in international and comparative law, with a practical approach aimed at supporting legal academics, administrators, and practitioners in improving the avenues and modalities of reparations for indigenous peoples.

The idea of multi-culturalism has had a significant impact across many areas of law. This book explores how it has shaped the recent development of international human rights law. Custodians of human rights, especially international monitoring bodies, try to advance the effectiveness of human rights standards by interpreting these standards according to a method strongly inspired by the idea of cultural 'relativism'. By using elements of cultural identity and cultural diversity as parameters for the interpretation, adjudication, and enforcement of such standards, human rights are evolving from the traditional 'universal' idea, to a 'multi-cultural' one, whereby rights are interpreted in a dynamic manner, which respond to the particular needs of the communities and individuals directly concerned.This book shows how this is epitomized by the rise of collective rights - which is intertwined with the evolution of the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples - in contrast with the traditional vision of human rights as inherently individual. It demonstrates how the process of 'culturalization' of human rights law can be shown through different methods: the most common being the recourse to the doctrine of the 'margin of appreciation' left to states in defining the content of human rights standards, extensively used by human rights bodies, such as the European Court of Human Rights. Secondly, different meanings can be attributed to the same human rights standards by adapting them to the cultural needs of the persons and - especially - communities specifically concerned. This method is particularly used by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the African Commission of Human and Peoples' Rights. The book concludes that the evolution of human rights law towards multi-cultural 'relativism' is not only maximizes the effectiveness of human rights standards, but is also necessary to improve the quality of communal life, and to promote the stability of inter-cultural relationships. However, to an extent, notions of 'universalism' remain necessary to defend the very idea of human dignity.