Cultural Rights, Local Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development: constructing a coherent narrative

Abstract

Cultural rights are the foundation of cultural policies, and the guarantee of their legitimacy and coherence. The various documents elaborated in the framework of the UN human rights system are an extraordinary source of inspiration. Yet cultural rights in practice is still regarded as problematic at a national level in terms of the formulation of domestic public policy, but are not so difficult to identify and be operationalised at a local level. This article will attempt to be pedagogical, and explain to the reader: (a) the contents of key documents by the UN human rights system – considering their consistency with the new ‘local sustainable development’ agenda; (b) the global guiding documents that interconnect cultural rights and local sustainable development; (c) examples of cities and local governments that are operationalizing cultural rights at a local level; and (d) a potential list of key issues to be considered by actors on local cultural policies based on cultural rights.