Indigenous peoples, intangible cultural heritage and participation in the United Nations

While there is growing international and regional promotion of cultural diversity and acknowledgment of the importance of cultural heritage to the maintenance and development of individual and collective identities, the capacity of groups This is because international law (and international society) remains dominated age. This chapter focuses on indigenous peoples’ efforts to participate in United Nations initiatives for the protection and promotion of intangible cultural heritage to explore the participation by non-state actors and the responses of key Organization (UNESCO), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Despite the dominance of the state in the protection of cultural heritage in international law, multilateral organizations have, in recent years, repeatedly reaf- mon heritage of all mankind’ (Art. I(3) 1966 UNESCO Principles). At the same time and within the same instruments, the international community has explicitly linked cultural diversity and human rights norms (Art. 1 Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity). The links between human rights law and cultural heritage have been most overtly explored at the international level in respect of Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, United Nations 1966a) and Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, United Nations 1966b). The jurisprudence of international and regional human rights bodies has acknowledged the importance of cultural heritage to group identity particularly for indigenous peoples. 1 Indigenous peoples have consistently maintained that the right to self-determination applies to them and that it incorporates the right to determine how their cultures between cultural diversity, the effective enjoyment of human rights relating to culture and access to cultural heritage has been emphasized by human rights bodies and through specialist cultural heritage instruments (UN 2011a : para. 58; and Art. 4, Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity)