Law’s Dalindyebo Shabalala presents papers on cultural rights

Dalindyebo ShabalalDalindyebo Shabalala, visiting assistant professor of law, recently presented on his papers.

He was a presenter and commenter at the 2014 Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights on “The impact on advertising and marketing practices on the enjoyment of cultural rights” Nov. 12-13.

Shabalala presented a draft of a paper commenting on the Report of the UN Special Rapporteur Farida Shaheed in the field of cultural rights at the end of her six-year tenure. Shaheed attended this conference, during which international experts commented on each of her reports. The UN reports will be published subsequently, together with the comments, in an edited volume.

Shabalala also presented “Climate Change Technologies and Human Rights – the Challenge of Identification and Implementation” at the University of Connecticut Law School Workshop on Human Rights and New Technologies, held Oct. 23.

His working paper was on the role that human rights can play in providing a stronger normative basis for challenging overly protective intellectual property regimes that, it is argued, prevent technology transfer to address climate change.

The paper first assesses the state of the research, discussing whether the project is succeeding in both its theoretical and policy goals, but primarily aims to outline what the project implies for identifying the nature and scope of the technologies to be transferred. In doing so, he revisited the work on Article 15(1)(b) of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Special Rapporteur on the right to “enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications.”