The evolution of international protection mechanisms for musicians at risk. A historical perspective exploring Pau Casals’s legacy
Author: Laurence Cuny
Format: digital
Number of pages: 66
Language: english
ISBN: 978-84-09-69844-8
Year of edition: 2024
Download pdfAbstract
The organized protection of artists at risk is a fairly recent subject in international law and practice. Initiatives for the temporary relocation of artists threatened or forced into exile have multiplied in the last decade. UN mechanisms and in particular the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights have given visibility to artistic freedom, the role of the arts in peace building and the figure of cultural rights defender. There is no doubt Pau Casals would have been considered a cultural rights defender.
As the protection of artists in conflicts is on the international agenda and coinciding with the 50th anniversary of his passing, it is a timely opportunity to recall the important legacy of Pau Casals as a musician and a humanist and his connection to the United Nations.
The staring point of this research was to investigate whether Pau Casals had benefited from support at the time of his exile and to put the evolution of international protection mechanisms for musicians into a historical perspective. Based on interviews with actors in the field of international protection and research in the archives of Pau Casals Foundation, this monograph explores the work and commitment of Pau Casals and contributes to understanding the current landscape of protection, its potential gaps, and how reclaiming the figure of Casals continues to be of value to address these gaps.
Laurence Cuny
Jurist and researcher specialized in cultural rights and artistic freedom. Since 2011, the relationships between art, culture, and human rights have been at the center of her research. She has collaborated with the United Nations Special Rapporteur for reports on artistic freedom (2013), the impact of advertising (2014), and public space (2019). In 2018, she joined UNESCO’s expert group on the 2005 Convention on Cultural Diversity. In this capacity, she is the author of Freedom & Creativity: Defending Art, Defending Diversity, published in 2020. She is also associated with the work of the Observatory of Diversity and Cultural Rights in Fribourg. The mechanisms for protecting artists in crisis contexts are among her research topics within the UNESCO Chair on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions at Laval University (Quebec) and the Institute for Research in International and European Law at the Sorbonne.
