ABSTRACT
Cultural rights are often qualified as an 'underdeveloped category' of human rights. This term was chosen as the title of the seminar organized in 1991 at Fribourg University,1 and was then broadly accepted. It suggests that, in comparison with other categories of human rights - civil, political, economic and social - cultural rights are the least developed as far as their scope, legal content and enforceability are concerned. Indeed, they need further elucidation, classification and strengthening. However, the term 'development' suggests the process of the creation of new rights. This point of view may be challenged as the existing list of cultural rights is relatively exhaustive. Therefore the problem is linked rather to the fact that these rights are neglected, underestimated, missing or forgotten, and that they are treated as 'poor relatives' of other human rights.
