Professor Bennoune Interviewed on UN Appointment by Capital Public Radio
Professor Karima Bennoune was interviewed on the Capital Public Radio news program Insight regarding her recent appointment by the United Nations Human Rights Council as its Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights.
"I will be an independent expert of the UN Human Rights Council, which is the highest UN human rights body, and I will report to them and to the UN General Assembly on thematic issues in cultural rights every year," Bennoune said, adding that she will carry out "country missions" where she is invited and with the consent of those countries' governments.
Cultural rights, Bennoune said, "until recently, were sort of the forgotten human rights. They include the right to take part in cultural life, the right to benefit from scientific progress, the right to benefit from your own scientific, literary, or artistic production, as well as all the freedoms that you need to be able to engage both in scientific and creative activity. Some people also add education to that list, so it's a very broad set of issues but they are all interconnected."
Professor Bennoune's appointment also drew coverage in the UC Davis student newspaper, the California Aggie.
Karima Bennoune is an author, lecturer, teacher, and international law scholar as well as the first Arab-American to be honored with the Derrick A. Bell Award from the Section on Minority Groups of the Association of American Law Schools. She recently was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for her book Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight against Muslim Fundamentalism, now available in paperback from W.W. Norton & Company.