Whether we are talking about burqa bans, honour killings, or practices of female genital mutilation, controversies regarding cultural practices loom large not only in discussions on integration but in human rights law more generally. To discuss how delicate and complex notions of “culture” should be dealt with in courts, Moritz Baumgärtel interviews Dr. Paola Pannia, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Florence undertaking comparative research on culture, equality, and judicial reasoning. Their talk delves into the conceptual intricacies of culture, the way in which judges in Italy, the United Kingdom and the European Court of Human Rights deal with them, risks of essentialization and stigmatization, as well as the importance of balancing between human rights and cultural diversity, including in questions related to gender. This interview was conducted for a guest lecture within the international human rights law course at University College Roosevelt in Middelburg.

To read more on the topic, see Paola Pannia, "The elephant in the courtroom: a socio-legal study on how judges manage cultural diversity in criminal law cases in Italy and the UK", EUI RSCAS; 2017/58; Global Governance Programme-285.