On the interrelatedness of human rights, culture and religion: considering the significance of cultural rights in protecting the religious identity of China’s Uyghur minority

Abstract

ABSTRACT In recent decades, Xinjiang’s municipal government has enacted a series of religious policies with the overt aim of combatting religious extremism, but which increasing numbers of Uyghur activists, scholars and human rights NGOs assert are discriminatory, serving as a vehicle for religious repression and the cultural assimilation of the region’s Uyghur and other Muslim minorities. Within this context, this paper will consider the applicability of international human rights law in protecting the Uyghurs’ cultural identity as a religious minority. However, any attempt to do so remains stymied as China has yet to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the sole human rights treaty of the United Nations that contains a provision dedicated to freedom of religion or belief for all. By exploring the applicability of cultural rights as a protection of the Uyghurs’ religious identity, this paper will highlight how the UN’s evolving definition of culture ensures that Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provides one of the broadest protections for minority rights within the core human rights instruments of the United Nations.