The book explores the links between fundamental rights and cultural identity in the European legal order especially in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The book analyses the issues surrounding the relationship between cultural diversity and fundamental rights with special emphasis on cultural rights and their protection in the European legal order. The book addresses general fundamental rights questions such as universality and cultural relativism and the principles of equality and non-discrimination. Secondly, several cases are discussed in which human rights were invoked to protect cultural interests of minorities in the European Court of Human Rights. Individual and collective dimensions of fundamental rights are also taken into consideration. Also, the book explores the cases were human rights are invoked in order to protect individual from cultural practices which are considered harmful or against public order, public morals, public healthor the rights of others.

The book provides a comprehensive overview of the case law of the ECHR on issues related to cultural identity and proposes a human rights framework for the management of cultural diversity in multi-cultural societies based on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.

Nikolaos Gaitenidis is a graduate of the Department of International and European, Political and Economic Studies of the University of Macedonia. He completed postgraduate studies in European Law at the Law School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He received his doctorate degree in 2015 from the Department of International and European Studies of the University of Macedonia. Currently, he is an adjunct lecturer at the Department of Political Studies of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a researcher at the University of Macedonia on issues of human rights and diversity in the context of Jean Monnet projects and the UNESCO Chair on Intercultural Policy.