Research pick: A right to music - "A human right to music – an ethical justification"

Music is an incredibly powerful part of what it means to be human, but should it be a human right? Should the human right to music be bundled with the right to freedom of expression, the right to culture, the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion and alongside the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples and the right to self-determination? New work published in the International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies seeks to answer these questions.

Peter Kirchschlaeger of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Lucerne in Switzerland suggests that there is a strong ethical justification for making music a human right. Once an ethical grounding is in place, a legal right might eventually flow from this.

Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 states that “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” There has recently been a call for a formal acknowledgement of the ‘composite’ right to music at least through jurisprudence and in practice.

“For a right to be transformed into positive law, a political opinion-forming and decision-making process is necessary leading to the political conclusion of the need for the human right to music,” writes Kirchschlaeger.

Ultimately, a human right to music might embody the following ethos: “The human right to music protects the freedom of expression in the form of music; the freedom to participate in music and to enjoy music; the freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to play, perform or listen to music as form to manifest his or her religion or belief in teaching, practice, and worship; music as a dimension of the Rights of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples; and music as a dimension of the Right to Self-Determination.”

Kirchschlaeger, P.G. (2021) ‘A human right to music – an ethical justification’, Int. J. Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp.284–297.