The World Heritage Convention

In one line

MU's 2026 first question is entirely this convention, and its first move is to define what heritage is worth protecting and then to say that protecting it is primarily the duty of the State it belongs to.

In exam wording: the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972 and entered into force on 17 December 1975; articles 1 and 2 define cultural and natural heritage, article 3 leaves identification to each State, article 4 places the duty of identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations primarily on the State in whose territory the property is situated, and article 6 recognises that such heritage constitutes a world heritage for whose protection it is the duty of the international community as a whole to cooperate.

Article 1: cultural heritage

Three categories.

• Monuments: architectural works, works of monumental sculpture and painting, elements or structures of an archaeological nature, inscriptions, cave dwellings and combinations of features, which are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science.
• Groups of buildings: groups of separate or connected buildings which, because of their architecture, their homogeneity or their place in the landscape, are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science.
• Sites: works of man or the combined works of nature and of man, and areas including archaeological sites, which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological point of view.

Article 2: natural heritage

Three categories.

• Natural features consisting of physical and biological formations or groups of such formations, which are of outstanding universal value from the aesthetic or scientific point of view.
• Geological and physiographical formations and precisely delineated areas which constitute the habitat of threatened species of animals and plants of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.
• Natural sites or precisely delineated natural areas of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty.

The phrase that runs through both articles is "outstanding universal value". It is the threshold, it is not defined in the Convention, and it has been given content by the Operational Guidelines adopted by the Committee, which set out ten criteria and require conditions of integrity and, for cultural property, authenticity, together with an adequate protection and management system.

Article 3: identification

It is for each State Party to identify and delineate the different properties situated on its territory and mentioned in articles 1 and 2.

Sovereignty again. Nobody may list a State's property without its nomination.

Article 4: the national duty

Each State Party recognises that the duty of ensuring the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations of the cultural and natural heritage situated on its territory belongs primarily to that State. It will do all it can to this end, to the utmost of its own resources and, where appropriate, with any international assistance and cooperation, in particular financial, artistic, scientific and technical, which it may be able to obtain.