This article examines ethical complexities of sustaining and safeguarding intangible cultural practices. Could safeguarding efforts violate human rights? In what circumstances could allowing a practice to die out be more ethically defensible than seeking to sustain it? And when, if ever, might it be ethically defensible to attempt to ‘kill’ a cultural practice? Presenting and employing a conceptual matrix to theorise the relationships between cultural sustainability and human rights, we examine two contrasting and counterintuitive contemporary cases where sustaining or safeguarding a cultural practice and acting ethically are not, or not necessarily, coincident: the Nigerian Igbo pot drum dance Avu Udu, and white-power music. These cases underscore the breadth and ethical complexities of the links between cultural sustainability and human rights, raise ethically consequential questions for safeguarding policy and practice, and offer insights that could help cultural stakeholders make more ethical decisions about safeguarding.