Heritage and Human Rights - Laws, Institutions, Actions

This book explores interlinkages between heritage and human rights and emphasizes that the connections are not just theoretical: Its chapters examine relevant laws, institutions, and actions that reflect both established and emerging trends in the field. The diversity of its authors' disciplinary and geographical backgrounds allows for coverage of perspectives ranging from international relations to art history and cases from Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.
The first section connects heritage to peacekeeping, transitional justice, climate change, and the sustainable development goals. Chapters in the second section address more granular civic initiatives, critically assessing their  political contours, challenges, and opportunities, and examining sites and processes as mediums for archiving rights. In the final section of the book, authors address the relationship between "subalternized memories", "invisible heritages", history-making, and the denial and recognition of rights. Going beyond traditional conceptions and approaches, authors demonstrate how less-traditional examples of cultural heritage can call attention to the violation or achievement of human rights and address the needs of people often excluded from current heritage-related discourses and practices. Ultimately, Heritage and Human Rights: Laws, Institutions, Actions critically assesses how frameworks and practices linking heritage and human rights can be complementary, limited, or even antagonistic.
Scholars, students, and actors in the heritage space will all benefit from this volume's frank explorations of underexplored cases.

List of contents

Part I:Laws.- Human Rights Law in Culture and Culture in Human Rights Law.- A Right to Heritage? Lessons from the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.- The Human Right to Cultural Heritage.- Part II:Institutions.- Heritage and Human Rights in Dark Times: Memories of the Forum of Organizations in Defense of the Brazilian Cultural Heritage.- Preserving Syria s Cultural Heritage in a Post-Assad Era: Challenges, Strategies, and Opportunities.- Cultural Heritage and Sacred sites in Latin America: Preserving spiritual landscapes in a changing world.- Cultural heritage and human rights in contexts of mineral exploration in the Amazon 181.- Part III:Actions.- Rewriting of History of Africa.-From the right to the city to urban citizenship: emotional and political heritage landscapes in the context of tourism gentrification in Porto, Portugal.- Human rights and Historical satire films: Reflecting on World War II dehumanization through cinema and humorous lenses.- Turning Occupants into Participants: São Paulo s Museums and People in Vulnerable Conditions.- Right to Culture and the struggle for equality: The Democratizing Power of Forró.

About the author

Inês de Carvalho Costa
is a PhD Candidate of Heritage Studies specializing in Art History, at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto (FLUP, Portugal). Her project Cultural Heritage and Human Rights: Iberic American experiences (years 2000) is supported by the Portuguese National Foundation for Science and Technology (2021.07318.BD), CITCEM-FLUP (Portugal), and LAPA/UFJF (Minas Gerais, Brazil). Costa is one of the co-founders of the International and Informal Network of Emerging Heritage Professionals, the Heritageeks. A group that advocates for heritage preservation, youth engagement, and labor rights of artists and cultural professionals.

Maria Leonor Botelho
has a PhD in History of Art. She is an associate professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto (Department of Heritage Studies), where she is the president of the Scientific Commission for the BA in History of Art. Botelho is an integrated researcher of CITCEM/FLUP, coordinating the "Material and Immaterial Heritage" work group. She is part of the UNESCO Chair, which is entitled ‘Heritage, Cities and Landscapes. Sustainable Management, Conservation, Planning and Design’, hosted by the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (Portugal). She develops research in architecture and historiography of the Romanesque period of the DGEMN's interventions in Romanesque architecture in Portugal. Her field of work and research has grown within the scope of heritage management, digital heritage and world heritage. She teaches curricular units within Heritage Management and Medieval Architecture themes, guiding research projects in the same areas of knowledge at the master's and doctoral levels.

Rodrigo Christofoletti
works at the interface between History and International Relations, focusing on Cultural Heritage. He leads the CNPq research group - Heritage and International Relations, and he is a researcher at LAPA - UFJF Heritage Laboratory (Brazil), as well as a collaborator at CITCEM - Center for Transdisciplinary Research «Culture, Space and Memory» (Portugal). Christofoletti completed a mobility internship (post doctorate) at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto (2023-2024, Portugal) and is a professor of Cultural Heritage in the History program at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (Brazil). The author has experience in political history with an emphasis on cultural heritage. The writer works primarily with topics concerning heritage and soft power, cultural assets, their illicit trafficking, and World Heritage. 

Summary

This book explores interlinkages between heritage and human rights and emphasizes that the connections are not just theoretical: Its chapters examine relevant laws, institutions, and actions that reflect both established and emerging trends in the field. The diversity of its authors' disciplinary and geographical backgrounds allows for coverage of perspectives ranging from international relations to art history and cases from Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

The first section connects heritage to peacekeeping, transitional justice, climate change, and the sustainable development goals. Chapters in the second section address more granular civic initiatives, critically assessing their  political contours, challenges, and opportunities, and examining sites and processes as mediums for archiving rights. In the final section of the book, authors address the relationship between “subalternized memories”, “invisible heritages”, history-making, and the denial and recognition of rights. Going beyond traditional conceptions and approaches, authors demonstrate how less-traditional examples of cultural heritage can call attention to the violation or achievement of human rights and address the needs of people often excluded from current heritage-related discourses and practices. Ultimately,
Heritage and Human Rights: Laws, Institutions, Actions
 critically assesses how frameworks and practices linking heritage and human rights can be complementary, limited, or even antagonistic.

Scholars, students, and actors in the heritage space will all benefit from this volume's frank explorations of underexplored cases.

Product details

• Assisted by: Maria Leonor Botelho (Editor), Rodrigo Christofoletti (Editor), Inês de Carvalho Costa (Editor), Maria Leonor Botelho (Editor)
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 30.03.2026
• EAN: 9783032167538
• ISBN: 978-3-0-3216753-8
• Illustrations: Approx. 320 p.
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Cultural history; Archäologie, Menschenrechte, Bürgerrechte, Human Rights, Community, Identity, Museums- und Denkmalkunde, Cultural Heritage, Conservation and Preservation, Heritage Management, history-making, civic movement