I Book Review: Human Rights, Culture and the Rule of Law
| DOI | 10.1177/016934410802600110 |
| Published date | 01 March 2008 |
| Date | 01 March 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Part D: DocumentationI Book Review |
I Book Reviews
Netherlands Q uarterly of Human R ights, Vol. 26/1 (2008) 151
Notwithstand ing these criticisms, it is a plain fact that the author of the monograph
knows h is topic very well. Consequent ly, the book, alt hough already a bit outdated
when it was published (it has indeed, as the author himself says in the preface only
‘been slightly modied and updated ’), can, with an extensive St rasbourg ca se-law
sometimes linked by Çoban to the t heoretical par t of his monograph (in the latter
regard, Çoban is the rst to study Article 1 in this way), be seen as a good starting point
for everyone with a tru e appetite for property rights under the Europea n Convention
on Human Rights.
Jessica Almqvist, Huma n Rights, Culture and the Rule of Law, Hart Publishing,
Oxford and Portland, 20 05, 242 pp., ISBN: 1–84113–506–2*
Aer a long period of neglect, cultura l human rights have become an important topic
of research and ana lysis and an increasing number of ar ticles and books is the result.
One of the main reasons for t he increased attention is the felt need to nd answers to
current policy questions concerning t he accommodation of cultural diversity and the
problematic issues related to multicultura l society. While globalisation and its rapid
increase in communication and transp ort has fostered multicult ural societies, at the
same time there seems to be a growing rear mation of local specicit ies and cultural
identities, i ncluding a demand for the promotion a nd protection of c ultural human
rights .
Most of the i nternational law publ ications on cu ltural rights focus on the
elaboration of the normative content of such rights or on the development of cultu ral
rights for certain specic communities , such as minorities a nd indigenous peoples.
e collective aspect of cultur al rights is therefore one of the central elements of these
publications. e doctora l dissert ation of Jessica Al mqvist, however, addresses t he
topic of culture and human r ights from a dierent a ngle, the angle of legal theory,
and take s a more individua l approach. In her b ook she does not di scuss the right to
culture as a human right as such nor tries to elaborate on the content of this right or
the corresponding State obligations. She takes t he right to culture as a starting p oint
for the behaviour of persons in relation to the enjoyment of human rig hts. Almqvist
explores to what extent culture, or decient cult ural equipment, can be an obstacle to
the enjoyment of human r ights. She descr ibes culture as a qua lity of t he individual
that has a serious impact on the ability to enjoy the rights and freedoms as recognised
in intern ational human rights law in meaningful and eective ways (p. 1). As such,
Almqvist promise s t he reader ‘an alternative human rights approach to culture’
(p. 2).
* Yvonne Donders, Deputy Di rector, Amsterdam Cent er for International Law (ACIL), Universit y of
Amsterdam, t he Netherlands.
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