Repatriation of Sacred Indigenous Cultural Heritage Under International Human Rights Law

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter explores the plethora of human rights treaty provisions, soft law instruments, treaty body documents, expert opinions and other documents that touch upon or relate to the repatriation of sacred indigenous cultural heritage. For this reason, the chapter first explains how relevant international law instruments, including major human rights treaties and the standard-setting instrument for indigenous rights, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, are interpreted and applied. In a second step the main international law instruments and documents are analysed, with a view to distilling the core standards and obligations which should be respected by stakeholders on the national level. This is complemented by an in-depth exploration of the field of indigenous rights in so far as it relates to culture, heritage, religion and repatriation. Together these fields and instruments form a web of related obligations and rights which will guide the analysis of different repatriation frameworks explored in later chapters. Moreover, they should guide all relevant stakeholders who engage in repatriation. This hope is also expressed by the collection of important standards and obligations at the end of the chapter under the umbrella term “toolbox” in the last section.