This article explores the limits and possibilities of international human rights law in protecting cultural heritage from state-led destruction. It does so by focusing on two attempts by activists and non-governmental organizations to have the United Nations and the Council of Europe intervene to save the ancient city of Hasankeyf in Turkey’s southeast region, which will soon be flooded by the reservoir waters of the Ilısu Dam. Adopting a heritage rights focus, these grassroots initiatives have argued that Hasankeyf’s destruction would constitute a violation of human rights because it would deprive people of their right to participate in, and benefit from, cultural heritage. I suggest that, as powerful attempts to link cultural heritage and human rights, these cases demonstrate the need for more effective and legally binding international frameworks to protect heritage rights as an aspect of human rights.

In 2003, the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (UNESCO ICH Convention) formalized provision for forms of heritage not solely rooted in the material world. This expanded the scope and accessibility of cultural heritage rights for communities and groups. To much commentary and critique, the United Kingdom (UK) infamously decided not to ratify the UNESCO ICH Convention. This article examines the implications of the UK’s decision not to ratify the Convention for the cultural heritage and human rights of an asylum-seeking group in Glasgow, Scotland, namely, the Glasgow Bajuni campaigners, members of a minority Somali clan. Based on participatory ethnographic fieldwork with the group and analysis of their asylum cases, this article makes two observations: first, that the UK’s absence from the Convention establishes a precedent in which other state actors (that is, immigration authorities) are emboldened to advance skepticism over matters involving intangible cultural heritage and, second, that despite this, limitations in current provisions in the UNESCO ICH Convention would provide the group with little additional protection than they currently have. Developing these observations, we critique current UK approaches to intangible cultural heritage as complicit in the maintenance of hierarchies and the border. Finally, we consider the extent to which the current provisions of the UNESCO ICH Convention might be improved to include migrant and asylum-seeking groups.

This article examines the different meanings that rights to land and culture hold in San Basilio de Palenque, an Afro-Colombian community whose “cultural space” was declared by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to be intangible cultural heritage of humanity in 2005. I investigate how the language of rights—both communal and individual—operates simultaneously at various registers and is strategically put to work in distinct political spheres. Drawing from ethnographic field research conducted between 2009 and 2013, I argue that while communal rights are invoked to garner recognition from state and transnational organizations like UNESCO, individual rights, conceived as exclusive prerogatives, serve to mark hierarchical distinctions between community members. I examine the paradoxical coexistence of two contradictory claims: one of cultural cohesion and another of social hierarchy. I conclude by questioning how a more nuanced examination of rights discourses in Palenque might contribute to understanding the multiple meanings of rights, not simply across time or space but also in relation to their perceived strategic purpose.

Social scientists are increasingly approaching the World Heritage Committee itself as an entry-point to understanding global heritage processes and phenomena. This article explores the subject of human rights in the operations of the World Heritage Committee—the decision-making body established by the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention. It seeks to address the epistemological and methodological implications of approaching the World Heritage Committee as a point of departure for understanding global heritage and rights dynamics. It builds on an “event ethnography” undertaken by the authors to understand how rights discourse appeared in multiple contexts during the Thirty-Ninth World Heritage Committee session held in Bonn, Germany, in June 2015.

In this article, we discuss the methodological and ontological implications of studying rights discourses in the context of World Heritage events and processes. We have a particular interest in the interplay of formal and informal dynamics, revealing the entangled and multi-sited processes that shape and are shaped by the annual event. While much of the debate and analysis in heritage studies is understandably concerned with formal decision-making processes and position-taking, this work demonstrates the significance of a range of informal dynamics in appreciating future possibilities.

This article considers the role of recently adopted human rights-based policies in the context of preparations for the world heritage nomination of Bagan in Myanmar. Several conceptual, political, and practical factors influence the way in which such policies can be implemented. Conceptually, conflicting interpretations of the meaning of certain categories of human rights—most notably, cultural, development, and land rights—create ambiguity about who has rights to what. Politically, multilateral and bilateral negotiations between states parties inform whether and how human rights-based policies are enforced. On a practical level, implementation of such policies may be challenged by the low legal and administrative capacity of the state of Myanmar. Taking account of these factors, it is argued that human rights-based approaches can provide certain valuable insights but remain subject to serious limitations.