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In Our Time: Cultural Rights in the 20th Century

Cultural Rights in the 20th Century

10/12/1998

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Cultural Rights in the 20th Century

Melvyn Bragg examines what impact globalisation has had on human rights.

Melvyn Bragg examines the impact of globalisation on human rights. How possible is it to place one set of societal traditions within another and what does that do to the identity of both groups?

On the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Human Rights at the United Nations in New York, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the current status of that original declaration. Is it possible for any sort of rights to be ‘universal’? What are the implications of the ideas enshrined in that declaration - has the emphasis changed - and if so what are such rights? New thinking in this area has focused on ‘cultural rights’ but do these work alongside human rights, or do they supplant them? Has the advent of globalisation had an impact on human rights, and if so, how? At the end of the 20th century, can we look back to any progress in this area, and, if we look forward, do we see the oncoming train, or the light at the end of the human rights tunnel?  With Professor Homi Bhabha, Professor in English Literature and Art, Chicago University and Visiting Professor of the Humanities, University College, London; Profesor John Gray, Professor of European Thought, London School of Economics in January 1998.

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