Global Dialogue on Culture

"It is particularly important that social security affiliation for CCS (cultural and creative sector) workers is simplified and encouraged, and that the gains to be made by using technology and the tools of the globalized world are optimized. In that regard, IT (information technology) platforms could be used to facilitate CCS workers’ enrolment and payment of social security contributions. Social security agencies could thus consider innovative digital solutions, such as using SMS, digital access to artistic creation applications, or digital applications for registration, contribution collection and payment of benefits."

Social Protection in the Cultural and Creative Sector(Working Paper 28, 2021)

The digital environment represents an astounding space for access to culture and the dissemination of an infinite diversity of cultural expressions, while digital technologies offer amazing tools to stimulate the creativity of artists. However, these spaces and tools also carry threats to artists. Firstly, they can be used for censorship, thus violating their fundamental rights, including their freedom of artistic expression. The digital environment also encourages the free and illegal circulation of copyright works or allows works to circulate without their author being fairly remunerated. It is, therefore, the status of the artist – even his existence – that is threatened, the reduction in his remuneration being able to deprive him of all of his economic and social rights. The digital environment can also jeopardize the relationship that the artist maintains with the public, preventing the public from benefitting from the work that the artist is no longer able to produce or disseminate. The danger is a progressive impoverishment of the diversity of cultural expressions.

Through a wide range of cultural policies, several States have historically succeeded in protecting artists and their relationship with the public, as well as promoting the diversity of cultural expressions. These policies must now be rethought for the digital environment. Whilst digital technologies now allow cultural expressions to circulate freely in a public space without borders, easily accessible to all, cultural expressions from certain regions of the world or certain States are still virtually absent from this universe, while the cultural expressions of minority groups and indigenous peoples only exceptionally benefit from the influence that digital technologies can offer. Faced with the development of certain business models that are not conducive to diversity, cultural policies must stimulate the discoverability of these cultural expressions in the digital environment.

A cross-cutting approach to these issues and the mobilization of other policies is also necessary. National strategies, action plans or other initiatives aimed at supporting the development of the digital market must take into account the impact of these technologies on culture. Not only does the future of the diversity of cultural expressions depend on it but also the right of each individual to participate in cultural life, which has to be considered in its virtual dimension, particularly the rights of young people and of vulnerable people and groups, who are often marginalized within this universe. The protection of everyone's cultural rights in the digital environment is an essential condition for dialogue between cultures. It is also an essential step in the journey that should lead to full recognition of the invaluable contribution of culture to the well-being and sustainable development of our societies.

Our network serves as a resource rich digital platform that allows members, professionals, students and interested public to access a large repository of heritage records, knowledge, skills and even experts and practitioners that can aid any Caribbean territory in their respective heritage programmes. It supports sharing and learning from each other.

It is time we impress upon on various State parties, governments and support systems to not only recognize that our lives cannot delink from heritage but rather the resources in this sector are irreplaceable and are not hindrances to progress and development but rather complementary. They add value in every sector as they overlap and can and always provide direction and guidance to present and future plans.

This calls for stronger synergy among stakeholders, for interconnectedness and - more importantly - an action-oriented plan that supports each of our calls as a collective to prioritise cultural heritage preservation. It also requires updated legislation and supporting policies, strengthened capacity building and sharing of skills across borders, as well as improving our interconnected partnerships and dialogues that can result in tangible results to improve the sector and respective cultural entities and countries. We need to improve the content and virtual platforms and maximize the current demand for this public good for all to have safe, digital spaces to engage, including for practitioners, youth, beneficiaries of culture and heritage among others.

"To speak of cultural heritage in the context of human rights entails taking into consideration the multiple heritages through which individuals and communities express their humanity, give meaning to their existence, build their worldviews and represent their encounter with the external forces affecting their lives. Cultural heritage is to be understood as resources enabling the cultural identification and development processes of individuals and communities which they, implicitly or explicitly, wish to transmit to future generations...The right of access to and enjoyment of cultural heritage includes the right of individuals and communities to, inter alia, know, understand, enter, visit, make use of, maintain, exchange and develop cultural heritage, as well as to benefit from the cultural heritage and the creation of others. It also includes the right to participate in the identification, interpretation and development of cultural heritage, as well as to the design and implementation of preservation/safeguard policies and programmes."

The 1954 Convention, and its Protocols of 1954 and 1999, remain the primary relevant internal humanitarian law underlining the importance of cultural heritage for peacebuilding, community cohesion, dignity and well-being but have subsequently been reinforced. The framework for protecting cultural property in the event of armed conflict therefore exists. This must not be regarded as a ‘nice-to-have’ or an unnecessary additional burden on governments and their armed forces, both of which have specific responsibilities under the framework, but as an indivisibly and fully intertwined aspect of the protection of individuals and communities.

Unfortunately - as evident from several recent and current conflicts - cultural property is not only damaged and destroyed unintentionally but can be deliberately targeted in conflict. In some cases, perceived misinterpretation of the past is used as a cause of conflict. What is required is for all nations to properly implement the protection framework before armed conflict breaks out and to fulfil their responsibilities to safeguard and respect all cultural property during armed conflict. Cultural property can provide individuals and communities with a sense of place, identity, belonging, dignity, and wellbeing. It can be as a mechanism for peacebuilding and reconciliation, creating healthy, peaceful, stable, and sustainable communities. Lack of safeguarding and respect can provide an environment where looting of cultural property becomes the norm, providing, in some cases, funding for terrorist organisations and the extension of conflict.

It is unrealistic to envisage a time in the near future when there will be no armed conflict. Consequently, mitigation measures to protect cultural property, and thereby protect individuals and communities, must become the norm and be fully integrated into political and military planning for conflict and in the response from the rest of the uniformed, heritage, and humanitarian sectors to conflict. The Blue Shield - an advisory body to UNESCO’s Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property - identifies eight threats to cultural property in armed conflict (applicable also for both peacekeeping deployments and following disaster): 1.) lack of planning; 2.) lack of military & humanitarian awareness; 3.) collateral and accidental damage; 4.) development; 5.) looting, pillage & spoils of war; 6.) deliberate reuse of sites; 7.) specific (or deliberate) targeting; 8.) enforced neglect. Over the next 20 years these will be joined by additional specific threats of: 9.) increased cyber-attacks on cultural institutions; and 10.) conflict and natural/human-made disaster as result of climate change.

These ten threats must be acknowledged and addressed and should serve as the basis for the future of protecting and safeguarding heritage in conflict.

Removal and return of cultural objects have informed human relations since antiquity.From the foundation of the United Nations, newly independent states have consistently called for restitution of cultural heritage removed during foreign occupation. Restitution was viewed as integral to decolonization, the New International Economic Order and the right to development. Indigenous peoples’ claims for restitution of culture (land and sites, ancestral remains, cultural objects, and knowledge and language) infuse every aspect of the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples . The Declaration draws on the civil rights movement and human rights informing Indigenous responses to ongoing foreign occupation. More recently, UN Security Council Resolution 2347 of 2017 - the first dedicated to cultural heritage - recognises the threat that cultural loss and dislocation poses to international peace and security, and the centrality of effective international cooperation to facilitate restitution to address its effects. The "fil rouge" of these restitution claims is that the right of peoples to self-determination and economic, social and cultural development must encompass culture and cultural heritage.

Calls to address restitution claims and stem ongoing cultural losses has elicited manifold responses. The UNESCO 1970 Convention seeks to encourage international cooperation among states in regulating the trade in cultural objects and facilitating restitution claims, whilst the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention aims to harmonise private international law rules addressing restitution claims by States and non-state actors. Like-minded initiatives by regional organisations also exist, while multilateral efforts through the Security Council’s sanction regime, UN Office of Drugs and Crime, and International Criminal Court emphasise international cooperation on criminal accountability for cultural losses due to the illicit trade in cultural objects. Yet these treaties do not have retroactive effect.Following the call of then UNESCO Secretary-General in 1978, the ICPRCP was established to facilitate so-called ‘historic’ claims for restitution of cultural objects. In response to Indigenous peoples’ advocacy, the General Assembly have sanctioned the establishment of ‘fair, transparent and effective mechanisms for access to and repatriation’ of ceremonial objects and ancestral remains.Over the last half century, multilateral responses to the ongoing, adverse impact of cultural loss on peoples has moved beyond market regulation of trade in cultural goods to a human rights-based approach to restitution claims as effective remedies related to living cultures.

Claims for restitution of cultural heritage, from newly independent states to Indigenous peoples, to victims of armed conflict, belligerent occupation or disasters, emphasise that it is not simply an act of returning a cultural object but a process of redefining relations between peoples, within and across countries and generations. This shift is reflected in the contentious debate within the International Council of Museums about the definition and function of museums and collecting institutions; constitutional reform being negotiated in several states; and the growing momentum at the regional and multilateral level for mechanisms to facilitate international restitution of cultural objects removed during colonisation and Indigenous ancestral remains and sacred objects. It is important to recall that these responses and mechanisms must accord with the right of self-determination and be developed and operate with the effective participation and free prior and informed consent of the victims of serious cultural losses, past and present.