A/HRC/31/59 A. Definition of cultural rights: meaning and terminology 7. The Special Rapporteur recalls the definition of cultural rights used by the first mandate holder, based on academic research and general comment No. 21 (2009) of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the right of everyone to take part in cultural life:1 Cultural rights protect the rights for each person, individually and in community with others, as well as groups of people, to develop and express their humanity, their world view and the meanings they give to their existence and their development through, inter alia, values, beliefs, convictions, languages, knowledge and the arts, institutions and ways of life. They may also be considered as protecting access to cultural heritage and resources that allow such identification and development processes to take place.2 8. The Special Rapporteur believes her predecessor made the correct decision when she declined to define culture, but took a holistic, inclusive approach to its meanings. Significantly, she stated that culture is created, contested and recreated within social praxis (see A/67/287, para. 2), in other words through human agency. The current Special Rapporteur further notes that: (a) all people and all peoples have culture, not merely certain categories or geographies of people; (b) cultures are human constructs constantly subject to reinterpretation; and (c) while it is customary to do so, referring to culture in the singular has problematic methodological and epistemological consequences. It must be understood that culture is always plural. “Culture” means cultures. 9. On many occasions, the first Special Rapporteur stressed that the purpose of the mandate is not to protect culture or cultural heritage per se, but rather the conditions allowing all people, without discrimination, to access, participate in and contribute to cultural life in a continuously developing manner. Based on the work undertaken by her predecessor, the Special Rapporteur understands cultural rights as protecting, in particular: (a) human creativity in all its diversity and the conditions for it to be exercised, developed and made accessible; (b) the free choice, expression and development of identities, which includes the right to choose not to be a part of particular collectives, as well as the right to change one’s mind or exit a collective, and indeed to take part on an equal basis in the process of defining it; (c) the rights of individuals and groups to participate – or not to participate – in the cultural life of their choice and to conduct their own cultural practices; (d) their right to interact and exchange, regardless of group affiliation and of frontiers; (e) their rights to enjoy and have access to the arts, to knowledge, including scientific knowledge, and to their own cultural heritage, as well as that of others; and (e) their rights to participate in the interpretation, elaboration and development of cultural heritage and in the reformulation of their cultural identities. Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights holds that “everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community,” which today must be understood to refer to the plural form “communities” (see A/HRC/14/36, para. 10). 10. The Special Rapporteur is of the view that the relationship between individuals and groups needs further exploration, as does the terminology used to refer to the latter. She recognizes that some groups are indeed deemed rights holders under human rights law. Notably, the importance of the collective exercise of cultural rights is stressed throughout the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. However, one difficulty of accurately describing human groups is their diverse typology, including inter 1 2 4 General comment No. 21, para. 13. A/HRC/14/36, para. 9, and A/67/287, para. 7.