Distribution limited                        WHC-94/CONF.003/INF.6
                                           Paris, 13 October 1994
                                                original : French



                   UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL,
              SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION


          CONVENTION CONCERNING THE PROTECTION OF THE
             WORLD CULTURAL AND NATURAL HERITAGE


                    WORLD HERITAGE COMMITTEE

                       Eighteenth session

                        Phuket, Thailand

                      12-17 November 1994


Expert Meeting on the "Global Strategy" and thematic studies for a
representative World Heritage List
(UNESCO Headquarters, 20-22 June 1994)






I. Background and objectives

     A document (WHC-93/CONF.002/8) on the current situation and
the prospects of the "Global Study" and thematic studies was
presented by the Secretariat to the Committee at its 17th Meeting
in Cartagena (Colombia). After this document had been studied by
the Committee, the Delegate of the United States of America urged
ICOMOS and the Centre to continue this activity, taking into
account the work that had already been carried out.

     To this end, the World Heritage Centre and ICOMOS organized a
working group meeting at the UNESCO Headquarters on 20-22 June 1994
to concentrate on the representative nature of the World Heritage
List and the methodology for its definition and implementation, to
which experts from Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany,
Niger, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia were invited (the list of
participants is annexed to this report).

     Many high-quality attempts had been made over the past decade
to consider the best ways of ensuring the representative nature,
and hence the credibility, of the World Heritage List in the
future, but they had failed to achieve a consensus among the
scientific community, despite the fact that all the component
bodies and partners of the Convention were conscious of its
weaknesses and imbalances. Since the adoption of the Convention by
the General Conference of UNESCO in 1972, moreover, the concept of
cultural heritage had also developed considerably in meaning,
depth, and extent. The object of this meeting was therefore to
carry out an examination in depth of all the studies made of this
question over the last ten years and to arrive at concepts and a
common methodological procedure as a result of a detailed analysis
of the different approaches adopted.

     All the earlier contributions to this debate, which had been
brought together and analysed in the ICOMOS document Framework for
a Global Study, were therefore studied in the initial phase of the
meeting:

- 1984         Efforts by the Secretariat to put forward initial
               thoughts, which were both thematic and centred on
               architecture.

- 1987-1988    Expert groups convened by the Sri Lankan Ambassador
               to study the concept of a "Global Study" and its
               frame of reference, with several thematic studies

- 1991         Recommendation by the World Heritage Bureau that a
               combined temporal, cultural, and thematic approach
               should be adopted for the Global Study.

- 1992         ICOMOS proposal based on the idea of "cultural
               provinces" and proposal from the USA and Greece to
               expand the ICOMOS proposal by developing a
               three-dimensional "time-culture-human achievement"
               grid and implementing this by means of numerous
               thematic studies.

- 1992         Proposal by M. Léon Pressouyre, in his publication
               La Convention du patrimoine mondial vingt ans
               après, that there should be a thematic approach
               oriented towards categories of property that are
               little or not at all represented on the World
               Heritage List.

- 1993         ICOMOS expert meeting in Colombo (Sri Lanka) during
               which the approach involving the three-dimensional
               grid and "cultural provinces" was reaffirmed. The
               results of this meeting gave rise to many
               discussions in the expert community.

II. The content of the meeting

     The three days of in-depth discussions by the experts led to
unanimous agreement being reached on a number of observations.

     It was apparent to all the participants that from its
inception the World Heritage List had been based on an almost
exclusively "monumental" concept of the cultural heritage, ignoring
the fact that not only scientific knowledge but also intellectual
attitudes towards the extent of the notion of cultural heritage,
together with the perception and understanding of the history of
human societies, had developed considerably in the past twenty
years. Even the way in which different societies looked at
themselves - their values, history, and the relations that they
maintained or had maintained with other societies - had developed
significantly. In 1972 the idea of cultural heritage had been to a
very large extent embodied in and confined to architectural
monuments. Since that time, however, the history of art and
architecture, archaeology, anthropology, and ethnology no longer
concentrated on single monuments in isolation but rather on
considering cultural groupings that were complex and
multidimensional, which demonstrated in spatial terms the social
structures, ways of life, beliefs, systems of knowledge, and
representations of different past and present cultures in the
entire world. Each individual piece of evidence should therefore be
considered not in isolation but within its whole context and with
an understanding of the multiple reciprocal relationships that it
had with its physical and non-physical environment.

     Against this background, therefore, it was appropriate to set
aside the idea of a rigid and restricted World Heritage List and
instead to take into account all the possibilities for extending
and enriching it by means of new types of property whose value
might become apparent as knowledge and ideas developed. The List
should be receptive to the many and varied cultural manifestations
of outstanding universal value through which cultures expressed
themselves.

     This process of reflection should thus be continuous,
pragmatic, and evolutionary in nature, based on systematic
reference to the international scientific community; it should also
be at all times prepared to identify the gaps in the List and to
organize studies of those gaps.

     A number of gaps and imbalances were already discernible on
the World Heritage List:

-    Europe was over-represented in relation to the rest of the
     world;

-    historic towns and religious buildings were over-represented
     in relation to other types of property;

-    Christianity was over-represented in relation to other
     religions and beliefs;

-    historical periods were over-represented in relation to
     prehistory and the 20th century;

-    "elitist" architecture was over-represented in relation to
     vernacular architecture;

-    in more general terms, all living cultures - and especially
     the "traditional" ones -, with their depth, their wealth,
     their complexity, and their diverse relationships with their
     environment, figured very little on the List. Even traditional
     settlements were only included on the List in terms of their
     "architectural" value, taking no account of their many
     economic, social, symbolic, and philosophical dimensions or of
     their many continuing interactions with their natural
     environment in all its diversity. This impoverishment of the
     cultural expression of human societies was also due to an
     over-simplified division between cultural and natural
     properties which took no account of the fact that in most
     human societies the landscape, which was created or at all
     events inhabited by human beings, was representative and an
     expression of the lives of the people who live in it and so
     was in this sense equally culturally meaningful.

     In order to ensure for the future a World Heritage List that
was at the same time representative, balanced, and credible, the
expert group considered it to be necessary not only to increase the
number of types, regions, and periods of cultural property that are
under-represented in the coming years, but also to take into
account the new concepts of the idea of cultural heritage that had
been developed over the past twenty years. To achieve this it was
advisable for there to be a process of continuous collaborative
study of the development of knowledge, scientific thought, and
views of relationships between world cultures. In addition, the
expert group preferred the more dynamic, continuous, and
evolutionary concept of a "Global Strategy" to the term "Global
Study", which conjured up the idea of a study that was rigid,
unique, and definitive.

     This global strategy should take the form of an action
programme covering several phases over at least five years. It
should be based on a methodological technique designed to identify
the major gaps relating to types of property, regions of the world,
cultures, and periods in the List.

     It would result in comparative studies that would call upon
the skills and ideas of the international scientific community and
in a strategy for encouraging nominations of types of property and
from regions that were under-represented on the List and would, if
necessary, make proposals for changes in the criteria for
inscription and in the Operational Guidelines.

     Two initiatives must therefore be undertaken concurrently:
rectification of the imbalances on the List between regions of the
world, types of monument, and periods, and at the same time a move
away from a purely architectural view of the cultural heritage of
humanity towards one which was much more anthropological,
multi-functional. and universal.

     For example, 20th century architecture should not be con-
sidered solely from the point of view of "great" architects and
aesthetics, but rather as a striking transformation of multiple
meanings in the use of materials, technology, work, organization of
space, and, more generally, life in society. This new approach
would naturally require something more than a "world prize" for
architects in the development of a methodology that would make it
possible to identify a battery of objective criteria and
operational procedures that would reveal the significant
characteristics of this category of cultural property so as to
produce selections that were truly relevant.

     Themes other than 20th century architecture were also
identified by the group in moving from a "monumental" and static
view to a more comprehensive and diversified perception of the
wealth of human cultures. The world heritage should thus consider
the products of culture by means of several new thematic
approaches: modes of occupation of land and space, including
nomadism and migration, industrial technology, subsistence
strategies, water management, routes for people and goods,
traditional settlements and their environments, etc.

     Only by means of this thematic approach would it be possible
to appreciate cultural properties in their full range of functions
and meanings. The three-dimensional time-culture-human achievement
grid might in this sense be considered as a stage in the process of
reflection which had been of great value but which should give way
to a process of reflection that was more anthropological and
global.

     In order to pursue this process of reflection on the new
dimensions of the world heritage in greater depth and in this way
to ensure that the representative nature and credibility of the
List are maintained, it would be necessary to proceed not by sub-
contracting the work exclusively to a single NGO, which could not
guarantee the diversity of approaches and disciplines required, nor
by means of large conferences, which would certainly be costly and
largely unproductive, but rather through a small number of thematic
studies, carefully targeted and forward-looking, and concentrating
on new or little known aspects of the heritage, especially that of
under-represented regions such as Africa or the Pacific (rather
than categories of property that were already extensively covered
in the scientific literature), and organized as regional or
sub-regional meetings. These meetings should bring together
regional experts, experts from the international scientific
community in the relevant disciplines, and countries in the region
which were States Parties to the Convention and those which had not
yet joined. These meetings, each of which would be organized with
reference to its specific objective, would be convened by the World
Heritage Centre and ICOMOS, the latter drawing upon its network of
experts and preparing a document that explained the meaning and
content of the Convention so as to assist those experts who had so
far not been involved with it to work within the framework that it
provided.

     The expert group was convinced that these different approaches
and initiatives were such as to make a major contribution to the
balance, the representative nature, and therefore the credibility
of the World Heritage List, which the World Heritage Committee in
1992 identified as lying at the heart of several of the major goals
of its strategic guidelines for the future.

III Recommendations

State of the World Heritage List (cultural)

     The group judged that the current state of the World Heritage
List (for cultural and mixed sites) did not meeting the original
concept of heritage as set forth in the World Heritage Convention
(I, article 1). The List in its present form suffers from
geographical, temporal, and spiritual imbalances. With its emphasis
still on architectural monuments, the World Heritage List projects
a narrow view of cultural heritage and fails to reflect living
cultures, ethnographic and archaeological landscapes, and many of
the broad areas of human activity which are of outstanding
universal value.

     This assessment of the state of the World Heritage List makes
it imperative that steps be taken to achieve a representative,
balanced, and credible List. The group therefore recommends for the
consideration of the World Heritage Committee the following:

1.   Building on previous discussions connected with the global
     study, the group proposes to pass from a typological approach
     to one that reflects the complex and dynamic nature of
     cultural expression. They therefore propose that the project
     should be renamed "Global Strategy for the Implementation of
     the World Heritage Convention".

2.   In order to redress the imbalances in the current List, some
     areas have been identified as having high potential to
     complete gaps in representation. Areas such as these should be
     considered in their broad anthropological context through
     time:

     HUMAN COEXISTENCE WITH THE LAND

     -    Movement of peoples (nomadism, migration)
     -    Settlement
     -    Modes of subsistence
     -    Technological evolution

     HUMAN BEINGS IN SOCIETY

     -    Human interaction 
     -    Cultural coexistence 
     -    Spirituality and creative expression.

3.   In order to encourage nominations from under-represented
     regions, the group strongly preferred a series of regional
     meetings to the proposal for a large scientific conference.
     Regional meetings for States Parties and for regional experts
     should be organized, using as working documents the areas
     identified in recommendation 2 as well as analyses of
     properties already inscribed on the World Heritage List. In
     addition, in preparation for such regional meeting, States
     Parties are encouraged to develop tentative lists of
     properties for inscription as an additional working document.

4.   In order to benefit from the wealth of scientific activity
     under way in all parts of the world, systematic approaches
     should be made to international scientific organizations to
     determine their interest in contributing to these reflections.

5.   In an effort to achieve a representative List, the World
     Heritage Centre should actively encourage the participation of
     States Parties that have never nominated properties to the
     List, as well as countries that have not yet signed the
     Convention.

6.   In the short term, after considering the list of proposed
     comparative studies needed to address current nominations to
     the List, the group noted that work is under way on industrial
     heritage, cultural landscapes, and 20th century architecture.
     In its conviction that comparative studies should be targeted
     to gaps in the List, the group recommends support for studies
     on protohistoric sites (especially in sub-Saharan Africa) as
     well as properties in the Caucasian region. The group strongly
     suggested that comparative studies on areas already well
     covered in the international scientific literature, such as
     brick Gothic architecture and fortified towns, should only be
     undertaken with the participation of the States Parties
     involved in relevant nominations.

7.   In order to encourage inscriptions of properties that would
     fill gaps in the List, the group recommends the modification
     of the cultural criteria (Operational Guidelines, paragraph
     24) as follows:

Criterion (i)       Remove "unique artistic achievement" from the
                    English version so that it corresponds with
                    the French;

Criterion (ii)      Re-examine this criterion so as to reflect
                    better the interaction of cultures, instead of
                    the present formulation, which suggests that
                    cultural influences occur in one direction
                    only;

Criterion (iii)     Removed "which has disappeared", since this
                    excludes living cultures;

Criterion (v)       Remove the phrase "especially when it has
                    become vulnerable under the impact of
                    irreversible change," since this favours cul-
                    tures that have disappeared;

Criteria (vi)       Encourage a less restrictive interpretation of
                    this criterion.




                                                            ANNEX

     LISTE DES PARTICIPANTS / LIST OF PARTICIPANTS


Dr. Chrintina Cameron       Director-General of National
Présidente de la réunion      Historic Sites
Chairperson                   Parks Canada
                              Department of Canadian Heritage
                              Hull, Canada

Ms. Maria Dolores de Almeida Cunha

                              Division of Intellectual Co-operation
                              Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil
                              Brazilia, Brazil

M. Asadine Beschaouch       Ancien Président et Rapporteur
                              du Comité du Patrimoine mondial

M. Isac Chiva                    Directeur d'Etudes
                              à l'Ecole des Hautes études
                              en sciences sociales
                              Paris, France

Ms. Joan Domicelj           Vice-President of ICOMOS
                              Cultural Heritage Consultant
                              Australia

S. Exc. M. Lambert Messan
                              Ambassadeur,
                              Délégué permanent du Niger
                              auprès de l'UNESCO

M. Léon Pressouyre               Vice-Président de
l'Université
                              de Paris I
                              Paris, France

Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang W. Wurster

                              Deutsches Archäologisches Institut
                              Kommission für Allgemeine und
                              Vergleichende Archäologie
                              Bonn, Germany


Dr. Henry Cleere            Coordinateur de l'ICOMOS pour le
                              patrimoine mondial /
                              World Heritage Coordinator

Ms. Regina Durighello       ICOMOS









Dr. Bernd von Droste        Directeur du Centre du
patrimoine
                              mondial pour l'UNESCO /
                              Director of the UNESCO World Heritage
                              Centre

M. Laurent Lèvi-Strauss          Centre du patrimoine
mondial / 
                              World Heritage Centre