COUNCIL OF EUROPE LEGAL INSTRUMENTS IN THE FIELD OF PROTECTION CULTURAL RIGHTS AND CULTURAL HERITAGE PROTECTION

Abstract

Abstract. The study of human rights mechanisms which are at the disposal of international organizations is becoming increasingly relevant. Rapid global and regional political processes that affect the further development of states, and in the case of Ukraine – its sovereignty and territorial integrity, should oblige to immediately review and improve national policies in the areas that are most under their influence. Processes destructive to national identity primarily affect a person, whose life and health, honor and dignity, inviolability and security are recognized in Ukraine as the highest social value. Human rights and freedoms and their guarantees determine the content and direction of the state’s activities. The purpose of the study is to analyze some regulatory legal acts of the Council of Europe, as well as other documents adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and other institutions, and the ways to protect human cultural rights and cultural heritage that these instruments provide. The main methodology of the study includes classification, generalization, comparative and systemic-structural analysis, as well as the comparative legal method, which allowed us to trace the development of instruments for the protection of cultural rights and cultural heritage in time and the stages of their introduction into the national legislation of Ukraine. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the identification, study and assessment of the effectiveness of some existing international legal mechanisms of the Council of Europe in ensuring the protection of cultural human rights and cultural heritage objects. The analysis of the documents allows us to conclude about the special nature of the approaches used in the development of regulatory legal acts of the organization. The philosophical and legal paradigm that is followed in the normative activities of the organization can be borrowed for use by the national legislator, at least when developing acts related to such sensitive areas of social and legal relations as heritage protection, museum, archival and museum affairs, which are vital for the preservation of the historical memory of generations and the further harmonious development of society.

Keywords: human rights; culture; international legal mechanisms; the Nicosia Convention; the Faro Convention.