World Heritage Committee

Logo of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee

The World Heritage Committee is a committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization that selects the sites to be listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger, defines the use of the World Heritage Fund and allocates financial assistance upon requests from States Parties.^[1] It comprises representatives from 21 state parties^[2][1] that are elected by the General Assembly of States Parties for a four-year term.^[3] These parties vote on decisions and proposals related to the World Heritage Convention and World Heritage List.

According to the World Heritage Convention, a committee member's term of office is six years. However many States Parties choose to voluntarily limit their term to four years, in order to give other States Parties an opportunity to serve.^[3] All members elected at the 15th General Assembly (2005) voluntarily chose to reduce their term of office from six to four years.^[3]

Deliberations of the World Heritage Committee are aided by three advisory bodies, the IUCN, ICOMOS and ICCROM.^[4][5]

Sessions

See also: List of World Heritage Sites by year of inscription

The World Heritage Committee meets once a year for an ordinary session to discuss the management of existing World Heritage Sites, and accept nominations by countries.^[3] Extraordinary meetings can be convened at the request of two-thirds of the state members.^[6] Meetings are held within the territory of state members of the World Heritage Committee at their invitation. Rotation between regions and cultures is a consideration for selection and the location for the next session is chosen by the committee at the end of each session.^[6]

Session[7]	Year	Date	Host city
1	1977	27 June–1 July	Paris
2	1978	5 September–8 September	Washington, D.C.
3	1979	22 October–26 October	Cairo & Luxor
4	1980	1 September–5 September	Paris
5	1981	26 October–30 October	Sydney
6	1982	13 December–17 December	Paris
7	1983	5 December–9 December	Florence
8	1984	29 October–2 November	Buenos Aires
9	1985	2 December–6 December	Paris
10	1986	24 November–28 November	Paris
11	1987	7 December–11 December	Paris
12	1988	5 December–9 December	Brasília
13	1989	11 December–15 December	Paris
14	1990	7 December–12 December	Banff
15	1991	9 December–13 December	Carthage
16	1992	7 December–14 December	Santa Fe
17	1993	6 December–11 December	Cartagena
18	1994	12 December–17 December	Phuket
19	1995	4 December–9 December	Berlin
20	1996	2 December–7 December	Mérida
21	1997	1 December–6 December	Naples
22	1998	30 November–5 December	Kyoto
23	1999	29 November–4 December	Marrakech
24	2000	27 November–2 December	Cairns
25	2001	11 December–16 December	Helsinki
26	2002	24 June–29 June	Budapest
27	2003	30 June–5 July	Paris
28	2004	28 June–7 July	Suzhou
29	2005	10 July–17 July	Durban
30	2006	8 July–16 July	Vilnius
31	2007	23 June–1 July	Christchurch
32	2008	2 July–10 July	Quebec City
33	2009	22 June–30 June	Seville
34	2010	25 July–3 August	Brasília
35	2011	19 June–29 June	Paris
36	2012	25 June–5 July	Saint Petersburg
37	2013	17 June–27 June	Phnom Penh
38	2014	15 June–25 June	Doha
39	2015	28 June–8 July	Bonn
40	2016	10 July–20 July	Istanbul
41	2017	2 July–12 July	Kraków
42	2018	24 June–4 July	Manama
43	2019	30 June–10 July	Baku
44	2020–21	16 July–31 July 2021 Originally scheduled for 2020. Postponed to an extended 2021 session due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[8]	Fuzhou
45	2022–23	10 September–25 September 2023 Originally scheduled for 19 June–30 June 2022 in Kazan, Russia. Postponed to an extended 2023 session due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[9][10]	Riyadh
46	2024	21 July–31 July	New Delhi

Bureau

At the end of each ordinary session, the committee elects a chairperson, five vice-chairpersons and a Rapporteur from those members whose term will continue through the next session.^[6] These are known as the Bureau, and their representatives are responsible for coordinating the work of the World Heritage Committee, including fixing dates, hours and the order of business meetings.^[1]

Voting

Each state member of the World Heritage Committee has one vote. Decisions require a simple majority with abstentions counted as not voting. Votes are delivered by a show of hands unless a secret ballot is requested by either the chairperson or two or more states members.^[6]

Members

Current members of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee:

Member state[11]	Mandate
Argentina	2021–2025
Belgium	2021–2025
Bulgaria	2021-2025
Greece	2021–2025
India	2021–2025
Italy	2021–2025
Jamaica	2023–2027
Japan	2021–2025
Kazakhstan	2023–2027
Kenya	2023–2027
Lebanon	2023–2027
Mexico	2021–2025
Qatar	2021–2025
Rwanda	2021–2025
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	2021–2025
Senegal	2023–2027
South Korea	2023–2027
Turkey	2023–2027
Ukraine	2023–2027
Vietnam	2023–2027
Zambia	2021–2025
Total	21

Criticism

Increasing politicization of World Heritage Committee decisions to the detriment of conservation aims has been alleged, particularly with regard to new nominations for the World Heritage List, but also with the consideration of sites for the List of World Heritage in Danger.^[12][13] In 2010, states parties including Hungary, Switzerland and Zimbabwe submitted an official protest against such politicization.^[5]

An external audit requested by the World Heritage Committee for its Global Strategy of the World Heritage List concluded in 2011 that political considerations were indeed influencing decisions.^[5] It observed that the composition of committee representatives had shifted from experts to diplomats in spite of World Heritage Convention Article 9 and found that opinions from advisory bodies often diverged from World Heritage Committee decisions.^[5]

In 2016, Israel recalled its UNESCO ambassador after the World Heritage Committee adopted a resolution in a secret ballot that referred to one of Jerusalem's holiest sites, the Temple Mount, only as a "Muslim holy site of worship", not mentioning that Jews and Christians venerate the site.^[14][15]

The committee has also been criticized with alleged racism, colorism, and geographic bias for favoring the inscription of sites in Western and industrialized countries over sites belonging to so-called "third-world" countries. A large proportion of the world heritage sites are located in Europe, Eastern Asia, and North America, where populations notably have lighter skin.^{[16][17][18][19]}

See also

• Lists of World Heritage Sites
• Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention

References

1. UNESCO. "The World Heritage Committee". UNESCO. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
2. According to the UNESCO World Heritage website, States Parties are countries that signed and ratified The World Heritage Convention. As of March 2013, there were a total of 170 State Parties.
3. "The World Heritage Committee". UNESCO World Heritage Site. Retrieved 14 October 2006.
4. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. "Advisory Bodies". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
5. Office of the External Auditor for the United Nations Scientific, Educational and Cultural Organization (2011) Independent Evaluation by the UNESCO External Auditor, Volume 1: Implementation of the Global Strategy for the Credible, Balanced and Representative World Heritage List. UNESCO Headquarters, Paris.
6. UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of the World Natural and Cultural Heritage (2015) Rules of Procedure. World Heritage Centre, Paris. Download available at https://whc.unesco.org/en/committee/ (27 June 2019)
7. "Sessions". UNESCO World Heritage Site.
8. UNESCO (16 July 2021). "Extended 44th World Heritage Committee session opens in Fuzhou, China". UNESCO. Retrieved 23 July 2021.
9. "UNESCO indefinitely postpones planned world heritage meeting in Russia". The Art Newspaper. 22 April 2022. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
10. "Saudi Arabia to host UNESCO's World Heritage Committee meetings in September". Saudi Gazette. 24 January 2023. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
11. "46th session of the World Heritage Committee". World Heritage Site. 2024. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
12. Meskell, Lynn (Winter 2014). "States of Conservation: Protection, Politics, and Pacting within UNESCO's World Heritage Committee". Anthropological Quarterly. 87: 217–243. doi:10.1353/anq.2014.0009. S2CID 143628800.
13. "UNESCO's world heritage sites: A danger list in danger". The Economist. 26 August 2010. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
14. Greshko, Michael (12 October 2017). "U.S. to Withdraw From UNESCO. Here's What That Means". National Geographic. Archived from the original on 21 March 2020. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
15. Tress, Luke (26 October 2016). "UNESCO adopts another resolution ignoring Jewish link to Temple Mount". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
16. Eliot, et al (2012). World heritage: Constructing a universal cultural order. Poetics Journal.
17. Djurberg, et al (2018). Reforming UNESCO's World Heritage. The Globalist.
18. Keough (2011). Heritage in Peril: A Critique of UNESCO's World Heritage Program. Global Studies Law Review.
19. Steiner, et al (2011). Imbalance of World Heritage List: "Did the UNESCO Strategy Work?". University of Zurich.

External links

• UNESCO World Heritage portal – official website (in English and French)
• The World Heritage List – official searchable list of all Inscribed Properties