UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention, the Intangible Heritage Convention and the Masterpiece Programme: An Analysis of Mutual Relations, References and Distinctions
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UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention, the Intangible Heritage Convention and the Masterpiece Programme: An Analysis of Mutual Relations, References and Distinctions
The article highlights selected relationships between the two currently best-known UNESCO heritage conventions, the 1972 World Heritage Convention and the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Although the latter was modelled on the former—with the important intermediate step of the UNESCO programme for Proclamation of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity (1998)—there are important differences between the conventions and the respective heritage regimes. The article examines in detail the delimitation of the subject areas of both conventions and the relationship between the key concepts of “outstanding” versus “representative”. Other aspects are also addressed in a condensed form, such as the question of the preservation concepts of both conventions and their implicit cultural geographies.
