A/67/287 own both their culture (and religion and tradition) and their human rights”. “The struggle for women’s human rights is not against religion, culture, or tradition.” 4 Cultures are shared outcomes of critical reflection and continuous engagements of human beings in response to an ever-changing world. The task at hand is to identify how human rights in general, and equal cultural rights in particular, can enable women “to find paths through which we may view tradition with new eyes, in such a way that it will not violate our rights and restore dignity to … women … [and] change those traditions which diminish our dignity”. 5 5. The realization of women’s cultural rights is closely dependent on the enjoyment of other rights. The reverse is also true. Situated at the juncture of civil and political rights, on the one hand, and economic, social and cultural rights, on the other, women’s equal cultural rights are transformative: they are empowering rights, providing important opportunities for the realization of other human rights. This report proposes to shift the paradigm from one that views culture merely as an obstacle to women’s rights to one that seeks to ensure equal enjoyment of cultural rights; such an approach also constitutes a critical tool for the realization of all their human rights. II. Equal cultural rights: challenges and opportunities 6. International standards related to cultural rights are too numerous to be reasserted in this report. 6 However, particular mention must be made of article 13 (c) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, by which States are committed to ensure, on the basis of equality of men and women, the right to participate in recreational activities, sports and all aspects of cultural life. This provision echoes article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which stipulate the right of everyone to participate in cultural life and enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications. These provisions have to be applied in accordance with the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of sex, also specified in these instruments and which, according to some scholars, has attained the status of jus cogens. 7 7. As the Special Rapporteur has stated previously (A/HRC/14/36, para. 9), cultural rights protect the rights of 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 assign to human existence and development through, inter alia, values, beliefs, convictions, languages, knowledge and the arts, __________________ 4 5 6 7 12-45930 Marsha Freeman, “Article 16 CEDAW and the Right to Practice One’s Beliefs”, in Women’s Human Rights and Culture/Religion/Tradition: International Standards as Guidelines for the Discussion?, Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) Special No. 32, Rikki Holtmaat and Ineke Boerefijn, eds. (Utrecht, 2010), pp. 63-64. R. Aída Hernández Castillo, “National Law and Indigenous Customary Law: The Struggle for Justice of Indigenous Women in Chiapas, Mexico”, in Gender Justice, Development, and Rights, Maxine Molyneux and Shahra Razavi, eds. (Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 57. See the report of the Independent Expert in the field of cultural rights (A/HRC/14/36). See, for example, Christine Chinkin, Marsha Freeman and Beate Rudolf, eds., The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women: A Commentary (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012). 5