October 2, 2015

Karima Bennoune Is Appointed the New United Nations Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights

As a legal scholar and human rights advocate, Karima Bennoune has worked tirelessly to combat extremism. She is an award-winning author and professor of international law at the University of California Davis School of Law.

Karima Bennoune at WLP conference on human rights, 9/14/2015

In an email message to WLP after the announcement, Karima wrote:

“I am deeply moved by this news which I interpret as a UN affirmation that the work women's human rights defenders do is core human rights and cultural rights work and that women have equal rights to access, enjoy and define culture. These have been key themes of my own work.  And I am very humbled to follow in the footsteps of my remarkable predecessor in this post, Farida Shaheed, whose trailblazing work as rapporteur has been so important for human rights, including women's rights.

I thank and recognize all the women's human rights defenders in all regions of the world who have worked with me and taught me over the years, and I am grateful for the opportunities I have had to collaborate with the Women's Learning Partnership and its predecessor SIGI which began 20 years ago in the lead up to the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.  We have come a long way. And we have a long way to go.  But today, there is a little piece of hope that reaffirms the idea that our work has made it into the mainstream and is on the agenda in a way that did not seem possible 20 years ago.” - Karima Bennoune