Indigenous Peoples’ Rights to Culture and Individual Rights to Access

Using the methods of philosophical analysis and concepts from moral and political philosophy Indigenous Peoples’ human right to control access to their cultural information is defended. The concept of a “right” is delineated and different types of rights are differentiated. The method of an “overlapping consensus” is used. In attempting to articulate the moral foundation for Indigenous Peoples’ rights to culture, we can start with justifications for limiting access that are already widely accepted within our society. These widely accepted justifications for controlling or limiting access to information include the claim that said information is (a) under copyright, (b) a trade or state secret, (c) harmful to some segment of society, or is (d) private or confidential. The moral grounds for each of these limitations on free access is explored. (a)-(c) are found to not provide an adequate ground for Indigenous People’s rights to control access to their culture. The cultural rights of Indigenous Peoples are defended as a form of group privacy. Two possible moral dangers of this defense of indigenous peoples rights to culture are considered. It is shown that on a properly nuanced understanding of the contours of the Indigenous Peoples’ rights to group privacy, they do not give rise to either of these dangers.