UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention at 40

The year 2012 marked the fortieth anniversary of UNESCO’s 1972 Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. It remains the major international instrument for safeguarding the world’s heritage. The Convention’s most significant feature is its integration of the concepts of nature conservation and preservation of cultural properties in a single treaty. Recognizing the increasing threats to natural and cultural sites, coupled with traditional conservation challenges, it was established as a new provision for the collective protection of heritage with outstanding universal value. This paper identifies three critical challenges that the World Heritage Convention faces today. Each of these has implications for how the international community chooses to identify, reify, protect, and promote something called “World Heritage” as a privileged category. These are the mounting challenges to expert opinions and decision making, the increasing and overt politicization of the World Heritage Committee, and UNESCO’s fiscal crisis exacerbated by the recent US financial withdrawal.