A/78/213
Culture to foster an enabling environment conducive to the respect and exercise of all
human rights, in particular cultural rights, individual and collective. This is an
important step forward, as it could potentially strengthen the integration of cultural
rights into sustainable development policies across all Goals; and also, because it
acknowledges both individual and collective cultural rights.
18. The Declaration has opened up strategic areas of policy engagement for the
future, including in terms of cultural rights. The States’ commitment in the
Mondiacult Declaration to support inclusive access to culture and participation in
cultural life, strengthen the economic rights of artists, protect and promote artistic
freedom, protect diversity, implement legal and policy frameworks, and expand
efforts to promote the protection, return and restitution of cultural property, are all
encouraging signs. In the structure of UNESCO, where civil society has more limited
involvement than in the United Nations human rights system, States need to be
committed to including the implementation of cultural rights in the work of UNESCO.
Now is the time for specific actions towards achieving such commitments. 15
19. The close collaboration between UNESCO and the Special Rapporteur could be
used as part of efforts to interpret UNESCO conventions in a manner that is consistent
with all aspects of cultural rights.
C.
World Intellectual Property Organization
20. The mandate of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is to
enable all countries to use intellectual property for economic, social and cultural
development. Its work is closely linked with cultural rights, as it focuses both on
protecting the rights of the authors, creators and inventors to their cultural and
scientific productions, and on increasing fair, inclusive and effective access to these
resources and knowledge for all. 16 The work of WIPO includes: (a) the preservation
and safeguarding of cultural heritage; (b) the promotion of cultural diversity;
(c) respect for cultural rights; and (d) the promotion of creativity and innovation as
ingredients of sustainable economic development. 17 Through the Traditional
Knowledge Division, WIPO also focuses on the protection of traditional cultural
expressions and expressions of folklore. 18
21. The work of WIPO is consistent with cultural rights as it recognizes that the
protection of traditional cultural expressions does not fit a one -size-fits-all approach
and that States should provide different options, including the adaptation of existing
international property systems to include Indigenous cultures, the establishment of
sui generis intellectual property systems and solutions beyond intellectual prope rty
law such as cultural heritage preservation laws, customary and Indigenous laws, trade
policies and the use of contracts. 19
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17
18
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See UNESCO, Executive Board decision 216 EX/11 for the action points of UNESCO.
For more on this analysis, see the dedicated thematic work of the specia l procedures mandate
holder on the impact of intellectual property regimes on the right to science and culture,
available at www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-cultural-rights/impact-intellectual-propertyregimes-enjoyment-right-science-and-culture. For an example of negative impact due to
sanctions, see the contribution of the Organization for Defending Victims of Violence.
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Consolidated Analysis of the Legal Protection
of Traditional Cultural Expressions/Expressions of Folklore (2003), p. 9.
The terms “traditional cultural expressions” and “expressi ons of folklore” are used
interchangeably by WIPO. For an overview of the work of WIPO on these matters, see Silke von
Lewinski, “Genetic resources, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions”, in
Research Handbook on the World Intellectual Property Organization: The First 50 Years and
Beyond, Sam Ricketson, ed. (Cheltenham, United Kingdom, Edward Elgar, 2020), p. 243.
WIPO, Intellectual Property and Traditional Cultural Expressions/Folklore (Geneva, 2005), p. 15.
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