The Future of World Heritage and the Emergence of Transnational Heritage Regimes

Abstract

The World Heritage Convention of UNESCO, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2012, was intended to promote the preservation and enjoyment of the world's most important natural and cultural heritage. It is now fast losing credibility because of political maneuvering and the inscription of sites that do not meet requirements for reasons of prestige and tourism development. This also threatens its role as an instrument to improve heritage management. That role is increasingly taken up by international corporations and banks, and globally we may well be seeing a shift from state-based frameworks that all go back to a "European" way of dealing with heritage, a regime, to a global and transnational heritage regime. At the same time, existing infrastructure and legislation in Western countries are under scrutiny as a result of financial crisis and economic recession, and, for developing countries, the wisdom of importing Western procedures and ethics is rightly being questioned. ResumenLa Convención del Patrimonio Mundial de la UNESCO, que celebra su cuadragésimo aniversario en 2012, tuvo como fin fomentar la conservación y el disfrute del patrimonio cultural y natural más importante del mundo. Actualmente dicha convención está perdiendo credibilidad rápidamente debido a maniobras políticas y a la inscripción de sitios que no reúnen los requisitos por cuestiones de prestigio y desarrollo del turismo. Esto también pone en riesgo su papel de instrumento para mejorar la gestión del patrimonio. Cada vez más las empresas y los bancos internacionales están asumiendo dicho papel, y a nivel mundial es posible que estemos frente a un cambio de estructuras basadas en el estado que regresan a una manera "europea" de ocuparse del patrimonio, un régimen, por un régimen del patrimonio transnacional y mundial. Al mismo tiempo la infraestructura

Archaeological Sites, Cultural Heritage, and Sustainable Development in the Republic of Kazakhstan

“…The stakeholders may not have even concerned themselves with the larger macroscale processes of transnational cooperation in the form of the designation of a Silk Route Corridor. When the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing, this suggests a failure on the part of all stakeholders to participate in the process of negotiating between the heritage community, the public, and the national and international arenas [13,14].…”

Mega-events and the Preservation of Urban Heritage: Literature Gaps, Potential Overlaps, and a Call for Further Research

“…The addition to a national heritage list or gaining status as a WHS can be a major draw (Willems 2014), often with tourism implications. The WHS label in particular is now internationally recognized as the highest standard for historic places, though the exploitation of heritage for economic gain though is not a modern concept.…”

The fusion of law and ethics in cultural heritage management: The 21st century confronts archaeology

“…In this article, the term extends to include not only the legal and legislative communities but also other crucial audiences such as the popular media, heritage bureaucracies (e.g., the international World Heritage system, including the statutory Advisory Bodies ICOMOS and IUCN, as intimated in the discussion of Ian Lilley's projects, as well as national and subnational agencies), the World Bank and other development lenders, and the transnational extractive industries sector. We maintain that developing productive relationships with these sectors will be fundamental to how 'engaged archaeology' will evolve in the 21st century (Willems 2014) and thus to how archaeology will be practiced in the field.…”

“…The application of international law's norms to modalities of archaeological heritage at the national or local level has been the subject of significant scholarship, particularly in the spheres of armed conflict, the (il)licit trade in antiquities, restitution/repatriation, and, more recently, intangible heritage and Indigenous rights (e.g., Disko and Tugendhat 2013;Gerstenblith 2009Gerstenblith , 2010Lixinski 2013;Luke and Kersel 2013a;O'Keefe 2006;Soderland 2013;Willems 2014). While the literature is vast, of significance here is the fact that international law during and since the 20th century has become integral to the discipline of archaeology and its precepts are entwined in national legal frameworks worldwide.…”