Museums for Human Rights

How can museums embed human rights as a normative framework to guide their actions and decisions?

What’s the situation?

While sustainability is often thought of in terms of environmental sustainability (or using natural resources carefully), sustainable development is equally about human rights.

In a famous speech, Eleanor Roosevelt (one of the main architects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) said:

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he/she lives in; the school or college he/she attends; the factory, farm, or office where he/she works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”

How many human rights can you name? Do you know what your, or museums’ responsibilities are regarding human rights? Human rights play rather little part in the day-to-day work of museums, although they are highly relevant. Museums are not alone in this, and human rights remain a small part of public consciousness in many countries and places. They are far from existing in all the ‘small places, close to home’.

How I work with human rights:

My approach is to take human rights as one half of sustainable development, along with environmental protection and restoration.

My work, on social and environmental topics, is strongly geared towards human rights. I work with what is called the Human Rights-based Approach. What does this mean? The HRBA has three main elements:

It is a framework for public services and to guide decision making
It is guided by recognised human rights instruments (conventions, treaties, declarations, guidance notes)
To help more people enjoy (benefit from and experience) the relevant rights

A Human Rights-based Approach helps get away from unhelpful ideas that people need help, charity or aid. People are active agents, whose ideas and creativity, participation and contribution are essential for sustainable development.

In 2020, I wrote Museums and Human Rights, as an introduction to the many ways that human rights and particular human rights agreements relate to museums’ work. Most people will be unfamiliar with these, and there is a massive potential to do much, much more for human rights everywhere.

What this means for you:

The guide on Museums and Human Rights can introduce you to many existing agreements and frameworks, and resources, that museums can contribute towards.

The Human Rights-based Approach is a powerful planning tool that helps get away from the ‘production line’ approach to activities that places people and communities at the end of a long line of decisions made by institutions with little insight into the aspirations or needs of people or communities. The HRBA can empower people and communities, but it can also empower organisations such as museums, to understand their responsibilities and to deliver them effectively and transparently.

“Respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights is one half of sustainable development, along with protecting and restoring nature”

How Curating Tomorrow can support you:

Curating Tomorrow can help you understand and apply human rights and Human Rights-based Approaches to your own work, organisation or network, through:

Understanding the potential of museums to contribute to, and get in the way of, particular human rights
Speaking at conferences
Online and/or in-person workshops for staff or groups of staff
Advice
Strategy, policy and plan development
Contributing to public-facing activities (exhibitions, events, consultations) on human rights and on, or using, the Human Rights-based Approach

Link to the ICOM webinar on human rights