Cultural Rights, Sustainability and Development: are they related? If so, how?

This article examines the relationship between the often separated ideas of rights, development and sustainability. While accepting that each is a contested term, the paper argues that the three elements can be brought together into a holistic model of positive social transformation, and in which each informs the other in creative ways. The article expands this triangulation by exploring in some detail the notion of Cultural Rights as an expansion and re-application of more classical understandings of human rights, and then links this exploration to contemporary debates in the field of culture and development. It argues that cultural rights provide the best vehicle for clarifying and applying the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Cultural Diversity and suggests concrete ways in which, on the one hand, culture can be more effectively integrated into holistic development discourse and practice, and, on the other, by which cultural as well as ecological sustainability can be foregrounded.