Laurence Cuny

Laurence Cuny is a human rights lawyer and researcher. Following her studies in international law at the Geneva Graduate Institute, she was teaching assistant in international public law at this institute for three years. She then joined the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) as program manager of the Observatory for the protection of human rights defenders. Between 2008 and 2018 she provided support in evaluation and training for the EU and for NGOs human rights programmes. Since 2011, her work focuses on cultural rights and artistic freedom. She collaborates on a regular basis with the mandate of the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights (artistic freedom, marketing practices and cultural rights, cultural rights and public spaces, cultural rights and migration). She has been a member of the UNESCO expert group on the 2005 Cultural Diversity Convention since 2018. In this capacity she authored the report Freedom & Creativity: Defending art, Defending diversity in 2020 and has helped the Secretariat develop a training programme on artistic freedom in the digital environment. As a researcher she is currently doing her PhD at Paris I Sorbonne and the UNESCO Chair on the diversity of cultural expressions at the Faculty of Law, Université Laval in Québec. Her recent publications focus on relocation of artists at risk in Latin America (Ifa, 2020), working conditions and status of the artist (IFACCA, 2022), artistic freedom in the digital environment (Lex Electronica, 2023), Art and Human rights (Elgar, 2023). In 2023 she joined the group of experts of Columbia University Global Freedom of Expression Programme.