The International Conference on Human Rights and the Environment took place in Tehran in May 2009 and was attended by around 150 participants, including 10 international and five Iranian speakers. It was conceived as an opportunity to bring together leading international experts in this field to seek greater clarity on the important but, as yet, under-conceptualised question of the nexus between human rights and the environment. Both in the papers presented and in the resulting Declaration text, cultural heritage was seen as a key element in both aspects of this nexus and as fundamental to achieving a suitable accommodation between the two.