Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee SOCHUM

The Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Issues Committee (SOCHUM) is the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly. The committee focuses on questions of human rights, the protection of children, the elimination of racial discrimination, and security of indigenous rights. Specifically important for this year is the committee’s remit in regards to cultural questions, including how best to preserve and protect the world’s rich cultural and linguistic heritage in every country. This year, SOCHUM will decide between debating how best to protect and manage the rights of speakers of minority languages in member nations and how best to protect and repatriate culturally significant artifacts to their home countries.

Topic A: The Protection and Promotion of Minority Language Rights
Globally, there are roughly 7,000 documented languages. It is also estimated that around 1,500 of these are at risk of dying by the end of this century. Nearly all of the languages which are under threat of dying are those of communities which are cultural or linguistic minorities in their respective regions. There are a variety of political, social, and economic factors which threaten minority languages and the rights of the individuals which speak them. Globalization, rural-urban migration, political conflict, and economic pressures that push speakers of minority languages towards urban centers all contribute to language shift and language death. More maliciously, however, is that many areas have policies of aggressive cultural assimilation that mean that language death is less a natural consequence of urbanization than it is a concrete policy agenda. The protection of linguistic minorities is a human rights obligation and an essential component of any international work towards the construction of socially and politically stable societies. If they choose this topic, delegates will be asked to clarify the various rights of linguistic minorities and the obligations of state authorities towards these minorities. Delegates will consider what kinds of policy solutions can support individuals who belong to linguistic minorities in their participation in public life and how to improve the frameworks for the protection of minority language rights which already exist. While they do this, they should consider the cultural impacts of language death and the complications of promoting minority language rights in a post-colonial context.

Topic B: The Movement of Cultural Patrimony
Understandings of cultural heritage and identity are often concretely tied to material objects. The movement of these objects between countries and between academic and cultural institutions within countries are often politically and socially charged. There are several international legal documents under organizations such as UNESCO and UNIDROIT which ostensibly provide a legal basis for the repatriation of stolen objects of cultural patrimony. Despite this, there are significant barriers to the framework’s implementation and issues regarding the movement of material cultural patrimony, and they exist outside the scope of returning stolen objects and their respective enforcement. Beyond the repatriation of stolen artifacts, determining an individual or group ‘ownership’ of cultural objects, art objects, and culturally-significant human remains is a broader international issue which is a necessary prerequisite to determining how to arbitrate the movement of cultural objects. Furthermore, the transport of objects between countries and institutions is often a vehicle for cultural understanding and cultural exchange, but to what extent is this an obligation for institutions to return them, particularly, if these objects are housed outside of their country of origin? In this committee we will ask delegates to consider how to both make more effective international legal frameworks for the repatriation of stolen objects and address concerns related to the movement of cultural objects broadly. Delegates will also be encouraged to consider the particular concerns and difficulties that Indigenous groups face in the repatriation of cultural artifacts and to take into account the importance of not only repatriation but also preservation.

Documents