Raphael Lemkin, the man who founded the term ‘genocide,’ did so with a view to protecting not only physical beings from systematically imposed extinction, but also protecting their cultures from the same fate. However, in the wake of the atrocities and bloodshed of WWII, cultural genocide was omitted from the 1948 Genocide Convention, and as a result, does not constitute an international crime. This omission has left a lacuna in international law which threatens minority groups. Not a threat of loss of life but rather loss of the culture that distinguishes them and identifies them as a minority. Powerful States with indifferent attitudes towards their international obligations face no significantly harsher punishment for cultural genocide than they do for other human rights transgressions. Consequently, cultural genocide continues as minority cultures are rendered extinct at the hands of States. The Case Study of this article investigates the present-day example of the Uyghur minority in China and analyzes whether this modern cultural genocide can pave the way for the recognition of cultural genocide as an international crime or whether the Uyghur culture will become a cautionary tale for minorities in the future.
The number of satellites in low Earth orbit is constantly increasing, particularly with the introduction of larger satellite constellations in recent times. This has resulted in a very crowded environment in Outer Space, which poses a number of challenges, not only to activities in Outer Space but also to the activity of observing Outer Space. Prior to humankind’s entry into and progressive exploration of Outer Space, the practice of astronomy, what Venkatesan et al. describe as the “millennia-old ability to observe, discover and analyse the cosmos from the surface of the Earth”, linked humankind to Outer Space; in particular the Indigenous Peoples whose practice of astronomy is integral to their ways of life. The Indigenous relationship with Outer Space through astronomy requires protection to ensure the continuation of Indigenous culture. However, the aforementioned continual increase of satellites in Outer Space has started to disrupt the view of the night sky and its components from Earth, disrupting the practice of astronomy as a whole and, thus, Indigenous practice. Therefore, humankind’s future plans for Outer Space must be constructed with humankind as a whole in mind, including the astronomy practices essential to the way of life of many Indigenous Peoples.
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