A/73/227
VI. Conclusions and recommendations
A.
Conclusions
68. To commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, we must defend and promote its core principle of universality
and implement its substantive articles, including article 27 guaranteeing the
right to take part in cultural life, without discrimination. We must promote this
message through scholarship, advocacy, policy, law, arts and culture. The
message of the Universal Declaration reverberates across the regions in diverse
voices, such as in the lyrics of Tunisian singer Emel Mathlouthi’s song Kelmti
Horra: “I am all the free people of the world put together”.
69. In today’s polarized world, we need a sophisticated multi-directional
stance. We must simultaneously defend the universality of human rights from
those seeking to use culture and cultural claims as a weapon against rights and
against others, and at the same time defend cultural rights and respect for
cultural diversity, in accordance with international standards, when those
principles come under attack.
70. The present report documented different types of threats to the human
rights system. Universality is under threat in particular from attempts to justify
a selective approach to it, by: (a) granting human rights only to some persons
and not to others; (b) committing only to some rights, such as civil and political
rights or economic, social and cultural rights, but not to the whole indivisible
and interdependent system of human rights; or (c) recognizing as universal only
the rights that all are deemed to agree on, and not all the rights in the universal
framework guaranteeing human dignity and equality for all. Any State or
stakeholder advocating these selective approaches undermines the principles of
universality, indivisibility and interdependence of rights and weakens the
foundations of the human rights system. When some rights or some persons are
taken out of the protective framework of human rights, the door is open for other
rights and other groups to be similarly excluded. The universal guarantee of all
human rights to all human beings must be defended to protect the dignity of all
and to promote a universal human rights culture.
71. The other set of major threats concerns cultural relativism and repeated
attempts to put particularities — of one region, one group, one world view or one
interpretation of culture and religion — above the universal norms of human
rights. Cultural relativism has been repudiated by human rights law and should
not be tolerated in any setting, and especially not in the United Nations and
human rights bodies. The Special Rapporteur reaffirms that each cultural
practice, norm and tradition must stand the test of universal human rights and
show its capacity to build and maintain human dignity to be legitimate.
72. It is essential in 2018 to understand that there is a diversity of cultural
diversities in each and every society, and that this is not a threat or an
impediment to universal human rights, but a reality and a resource. At the same
time, we must not overlook our commonalities and overemphasize our differences,
remembering always that we are all equal members of the human family, sharing
one fragile planet, endowed with inherent dignity and possessing equal and
inalienable rights.
20/26
18-12312