Protection of Cultural Rights

Abstract

Cultural rights, by its nature, are one of the possibilities of expressing views as well as different desires of a person. Therefore the protection of these rights is one of the direct tasks of International Law. Master thesis “Protection of Cultural Rights” is devoted to examining cultural rights as a separate group of human rights based on existing norms of International Law, as well as analysing the provisions aimed at protecting them through: specifying the notion of the concept “cultural rights”; outlining the mechanisms for protecting cultural human rights at the level of International Law in general and the European continent in particular; analyzing what the right to artistic expression and creation and the right to access to cultural heritage as the examples of the cultural rights mean and what mechanisms of International Law protect these rights; considering the necessity of protection of cultural and natural heritage and impacts from International Law’s provisions on these processes; and establishing the role and functions of UNESCO in the protection of cultural and natural heritage. Master thesis “Protection of Cultural Rights” is divided into general and specific parts, which provide the definition of the concept of cultural rights; International Law’s mechanisms of cultural rights regulation and protection; legal regulation of the right to artistic expression and creation as a kind of cultural rights; the examination of the mechanisms of its protection in International Law; the problematic aspects of protection of cultural and natural heritage, which has a special current interest for present and future generations, as well as international tools, which are intended to protect the right to access to cultural heritage; the determination UNESCO as a specialized international organization, one of the goals of which is the protection of the world's natural and cultural heritage.