Five standard-setting instruments, including the International Convention on the Preservation of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and the International Declaration on Human Genetic Data, were adopted by the 32nd session of UNESCO’s General Conference on October 17.
The General Conference, UNESCO’s supreme governing body, which brings together, every two years, representatives of all the 190 Member States, adopted by an overwhelming majority, the International Convention on the Preservation of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. A complement to the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, which concerns monuments and natural sites, the new Convention addresses oral traditions and expressions, including languages as vehicles of cultural heritage; the performing arts; social practices, rituals and festive events; knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; and traditional craftsmanship.
The convention requires a minimum of 30 States Parties to enter into force.
Algerian judge Mohammed Bedjaoui, a former president of the International Court of Justice in The Hague who chaired the intergovernmental experts’ meetings to draft the text, said that “Despite all its complexity, this concept of intangible cultural heritage has affirmed and finally imposed itself on all of us as a key concept in understanding the cultural identity of peoples […]. Every word of this convention is a grateful tribute to the creators and artisans of this wonderful heritage, to the great and also to the humble and anonymous, to the authors and the guardians of the temple of the traditions and knowledge of peoples.”
The preservation of this particularly vulnerable heritage is provided for by the Convention through the drawing up of national inventories of cultural property to be safeguarded, the establishment of an Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, composed of experts from future States Parties to the Convention, and the creation of two lists: a Representative List of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity and a List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.
To the first list will be added to the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, proclaimed in 2001 by the UNESCO Director-General. The 19 masterpieces are: The Garifuna Language, Dance and Music (Belize); The Oral Heritage of Gelede (Benin); The Oruro Carnival (Bolivia); The Kunqu Opera (China); The Gbofe of Afounkaha: the Music of the Transverse trumpets of the Tagbana Community (Côte d’Ivoire); The Cultural Space of the Brotherhood of the Holy Spirit of the Congos of Villa Mella (Dominican Republic); The Oral Heritage and Cultural Manifestations of the Zápara People (Ecuador-Peru); Georgian Polyphonic Singing (Georgia); The Cultural Space of Sosso-Bala in Nyagassola (Guinea); The Kutiyattam Sanskrit Theatre (India); Opera dei Pupi, Sicilian Puppet Theatre (Italy); The Nogaku Theatre (Japan); Cross Crafting and its Symbolism (Lithuania); The Cultural Space of Jemaa el-Fna Square (Morocco); Hudhud Chants of the Ifugao (Philippines); Royal Ancestral Rite and Ritual Music in Jongmyo Shrine (Republic of Korea); The Cultural Space and Oral Culture of the Semeiskie (Russian Federation); The Mystery Play of Elche (Spain); and The Cultural Space of the Boysun District (Uzbekistan).
