Memory Denied: A Commentary on the Reports of the UN Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights on Historical and Memorial Narratives in Divided Societies

• Published in: The International lawyer Vol. 48; no. 3; pp. 191 - 213
• Main Author: Chow, Pok Yin S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chicago American Bar Association's Section of International Law and Practice 01.01.2015; American Bar Association
• Subjects: Analysis; Collective memory; Community; Councils; Cultural heritage; Education; History education; Human rights; Information sources; Narratives; Political conventions; Society; Studies
• ISSN: 0020-7810; 2169-6578

"29 The rise of Nazism, the start of the World War II, and the infliction of subsequent mass atrocities were built upon the historical rhetoric of "victimhood".30 Similarly, different rhetoric can fuel extreme forms of discrimination, create distorted or non-existent relationships between groups,31 and incite animosity and revenge.32 In post-conflict and politically unstable societies, controlling social memory through erasing a nation's past is often a tactic to promote a regime's legitimacy.33 Forms of terrorism today feed on narratives of historical oppression.\n Moreover, the right to take part in cultural life, under which States are required to respect and protect the cultural and physical space for social reproduction of collective memories (e.g. the protection of memorial sites, cemeteries and burial grounds, and other sites of symbolic importance),163 is embodied in many international conventions includ- ing, inter alia, the ICESCR, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (CMW7), and the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).164 The same obligation pertains to article 27 of the ICCPR in the specific context of minorities.165 The right to education under article 13 of the ICESCR and article 29 of the CRC includes the right to receive education of general history in an unbiased and objective way respectful of freedoms of opinion, conscience, and expression;166 and, in the context of indigenous populations, demands that States provide a fair, accurate, and informative portrayal of the society or indigenous diluiré, in which the child belongs, in school curricula and education materials.167 These obligations provide further legal bases for articulating a set of procedural safeguards against the abuse of historical and memorialization narratives, for example, by: (1) requiring genuine consultations of stakeholders and access to decision-making in areas of history teaching and heritage conservation;168 (2) requiring that the history of past atrocities be taught in schools;169 (3) requiring the archival of official records; and, (4) ensuring the political space for societies to engage, educate, and mobilize the public to commemorate the past. [...]obligations of international cooperation may further be articulated to obligate States to refrain from acts or statements that would constitute a denial of past atrocities, which a State has committed on the population of another.170 In such ways, articulating a collective right to memory supplements the rights to freedom of expression and information by providing specificity and fills important gaps that are currently missing in international human rights protection.