Cultural Human Rights

The human rights movement, being born and bred in the Protestant West, perceives only individuals, but elsewhere in the world, the preservation of culture is important and is gradually seeping into the international legal regime. Contributors working in international or human rights, or with specific groups around the world explore such aspects as self-determination and cultural rights, indigenous peoples' cultural rights and the controversy over commercial use of their traditional knowledge, and the role of the state in balancing religious freedom with other human rights in a multicultural European context. Martinus Nijhoff is an imprint of Brill. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Francesco Francioni is Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the European University Institute, Florence, and at the Law Faculty of the University of Siena. He is also Co-Director of the Academy of European Law, General Editor of the Italian Yearbook of International Law and member of the Board of Editors of the European Journal of International Law. Professor Francioni is a member of the American Law Institute and of the Executive Board of the European Society of International Law. Martin Scheinin is Professor of Constitutional and International Law and the Director of the Institute for Human Rights at Abo Akademi University, Finland. He was a member of the Human Rights Committee acting under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights from 1997 to 2004, and since 2005 he has served as United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism. Professor Scheinin has acted as chairperson of the Committee on human rights law and practice within the International Law Association since 1998 and in 2003-2005 he was a member of the Expert Commission established to draft a proposal for a Nordic Saami Rights Convention.