Public seminar: The Role of Human Rights Law in International Responses to Cultural Appropriation

International efforts to regulate and prevent cultural appropriation have long explored cultural heritage law and intellectual property law as key avenues for heritage protection. While these frameworks offer important tools, they leave significant gaps that continue to disadvantage marginalised source communities. International human rights law (IHRL) can help fill those gaps by reframing appropriation as a violation of cultural identity, property and integrity and expanding the reach of cultural rights through its connection with other human rights and values. This way, IHRL can provide stronger and more inclusive normative and institutional mechanisms to counter appropriation and restore community control. While it has its own limitations, IHRL has a growing role to play as an effective foundation for safeguarding cultural heritage against appropriation.

Speaker: Ayla do Vale Alves is a Lecturer in Law at Adelaide University (Australia). Her research interests include international law, human rights, cultural heritage, Indigenous rights, regional human rights systems, freedom of religion and rights of the family, and Latin American legal studies. Ayla also worked as a Judicial Clerk trainee at the European Court of Human Rights. Her latest publication focuses on the domestic enforcement of international (human rights) judgments (book co-authored with Lucas Lixinski).

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