L

II
THE RIGHT TO
WORLD HERITAGE?

Lynn Meskell

T IH RIGHT T O WORLD HERITA G Io'

in the world heritage system. States parties have most to gain in the geopolitical
machinations and voting blocs that have emerged in the last few years. Not only

do nations garner international and national prestige, financial assistance and

benefit from heightened public awareness, tourism and economic development-

he year 2012 marked the 40th anniversary of UNESCO's 1972 Convention

Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. It is

they leverage heritage for strategic economic and political trade-offs for military,
religious, and geographical advantage.

currently the only international instrument we have for safeguarding the

world's heritage. However, as I go on to describe, the Convention is experiencing

UNESCO may have been forged on the liberal principles of diplomacy,

tolerance and development after the devastation of WWII, but today statist agendas

a crisis on several fronts- financial, organizational and political- that threaten its
mission and its effectiveness to protect and preserve.

have come to eclipse substantive considerations of both global heritage and local
communities. Like other vested stakeholders, archaeologists are often ignorant to

I take UNESCO as the centrepiece of this paper because the organization

simultaneously represents the aspirations of an international community, the

the power alignments and pacting in force, finding themselves bystanders in the
outcomes of heritage making. Educating ourselves is key, and becoming more
effective facilitators for vulnerable communities, but perhaps also seizing on the

limitations of world government, concerns for minority protection and rights,

notions of the global good and, of course, the driving force behind world heritage.
It still surprises me that archaeologists have not paid more detailed attention to
UNESCO since it catalyzes so many of the issues at the forefront of our discipline.
Yet, it stands as a kind of cipher that can be read as having everything, and at the

potentials of this international forum for advancing the recognition and rights of
others.

same time nothing, to do with archaeology. I found myself drawn to this paradox,
while inherently aware of my own caricatured sketches of the organization, and

So in light of these larger structural processes, I ask how are emergent rights
to the past being presented, promoted and prevented by particular actors
internationally? In this paper, I draw from recent developments involving UNESCO's
recognition of Palestine, the ensuing United States financial withdrawal, the crisis

how limited my knowledge was of institutional process, and so I embarked upon

ethnographic work and became an official observer at World Heritage Committee

in Mali, and the continued challenges to indigenous authority by state parties on

the World Heritage Committee. Indeed, one of UNESCO's millennium challenges

meetings.

was the very issue of sovereignty in an increasingly transnational world and in the
face of indigenous claims and rights that often conflict with nation states. Yet, the
structural failures to foreground minority rights, indigenous perspectives and to

In theory, UNESCO constitutes the arena where archaeology reaches worldwide

attention and yet archaeologists themselves are largely invisible in the political
processes, governance, and public profile of the organization. Despite the many
valid critiques of
World Heritage List, the recognition and value that inscription
bestows is still desi;ed deeply by almost all the nations of the world, regardless of
political or religious affiliation, economic status, or historical trajectory. That fact,

implement change within the World Heritage system are all underwritten by nationstate desires, colonial alignments and new imperialisms.

in itself, offers a powerful lens onto the potentials of something called heritage in
political, cultural, economic, and spiritual terms.

UNESCO is an intergovernmental organization guided by international

relations aimed at fostering peace, humanitarianism and inter-cultural
understanding, which developed out of the universalist aspirations for global
governance envisaged by the League of Nations (Singh 2011, Stoczkowski 2009,

As archaeologists, we typically presume that the power to confer heritage

rights and recognition largely resides with UNESCO's Paris Headquarters. Today,
there are less than 70 people working at the World Heritage Centre and their
funding is close to negligible. In fact, an inter-governmental body and part of the

Valderrama 1995). It remains committed to the modernist princip,les of progress

and development and subscribes to the liberal principles of diplomacy, tolerance
and development. Established after the end of World War II in the wake of devastation
and atrocity, UNESCO's central task was to promote peace and 'change the minds

United Nations, it is the signatory states that are the most powerful decision makers

of men' primarily through education and promotion of cultural diversity and

understanding. Not surprisingly, the work was focused on education, universities

THE Itl GI-t T TO \\'O RLO HLRITAGE?

INUl i\N WORLD HERITt\GE SITE S IN CONTeXT

and libraries, and internationalism-not archaeology. It is often said throughout

From 1977 to 2005, in 314 nominations, 42 per cent benefitted those countries

UNESCO that the E (for education) comes first. But given this history of recognition

with Committee members during their mandate. This is striking when one considers

and reconciliation, the long-standing ethos of cultural diversity, and protection of

that the 21 Committee members comprise only 11 per cent of the total number of

minority lifeways, it is not surprising that UNESCO has emerged as the only structural

signatories (UNESCO 2011: 6). And you will find that the same small subset of

avenue to global governance and promotion of cultural heritage. Within the United

countries rotates on and off the Committee every few years, so the Committee has

Nations, UNESCO may not be as powerful as high profile international peacekeeping,

never been a true representation of the United Nations.

environmental initiatives or development programmes; instead, it is perceived as

Moreover, during the last three World Heritage Committee sessions, I have

the cultural arm, the visionary agency, and the 'ideas factory' for the larger

witnessed a kind of revolution, leading some to predict the death of the Convention.

organization (Pavone 200B).

There are the mounting challenges to the expert opinions of ICOMOS and the

Within UNESCO is the World Heritage Centre that was established in 1992 to

IUCN, the increasing and overt politicization of the Committee, and UNESCO's

act as the secretariat or the focal point and coordinator for all matters related to

fiscal crisis exacerbated by the US financial withdrawal (Meskell 2012). I have

the 1972 Convention. That Convention is an intergovernmental agreement operating

witnessed the geopolitical machinations within the Committee and the excessive

for 40 years with strong consensus and near universal membership. There are 195

lobbying by nominating nations. The pacting between certain blocs, the

signatories to the Convention. And from those nations are drawn the 21 members

maintenance of colonial connections, the continued attacks on the advisory bodies,

of the World Heritage Committee: they are elected at a General Assembly and

and the over-turning of almost all conservation recommendations is a kind of

serve a four-year term. That committee is the most powerful player within World

revolutionary politics. All of this reveals a dissatisfaction with the processes of

Heritage and those 21 states parties are charged with implementing the Convention.

inscribing and conserving World Heritage-of countries wanting not to be judged,

Members must all be signatory nations to the World Heritage Convention and

but rather listing many more sites, regardless of conservation, authenticity and

their representatives are now dominated by state-appointed ambassadors and

outstanding value (labadi 2013) ... and archaeologists too have long been sceptical

politicians, rather than archaeological or ecological experts. Currently, there are

about the transparency and legitimacy of these indices.

9Bl sites on the World Heritage List, more than three-quarters of them cultural

example of positive action after decades of failed attempts- the recognition of

sites.
Unlike the employees of the World Heritage Centre, members of the World

But let me turn to one radical step that UNESCO has taken recently, one
Palestine.

Heritage Committee are state representatives and are thus free to pursue their

The UN and UNESCO have actively supported Palestine for many decades,

own national interests, maximize their power, push their economic self-interest,

from the establishment in 1949 of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for

and minimize their transaction costs (Pavone 2008: 7). These national imperatives

Palestine Refugees in the Near East, to granting observer status to the Palestine

and economic nee'essities are more binding than any ethical norms. Annual

liberation Organization in the 1970, and attempts in the early 1990s to admit

Committee meetings are becoming more like market-places where the nations of

Palestine as a full member (Valderrama 1995: 246). In 2011, the vote to extend

the world address 'each other at great length, but by procedures that ensure genuine

UNESCO membership to Palestine was passed 107 to 14, with 52 abstentions. The

dialogue is ruled out' (Hoggart 2011: 99). Given the economic interests at stake

United States, Israel, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany were among those

and the presumed prestige inscription on the List bestows, states parties are

who opposed, while Brazil, Russia, India China, and South Africa all voted in favour.

increasingly insisting upon nominating properties that, in the opinion of the IUCN

The latter forms a politico-economic coalition known as BRICS (Claudi 2011, Meskell

and ICOMOS, do not appear to warrant global recognition. Unsurprisingly, there is

2014), an acronym coined at Goldman Sachs for those nations at a similar stage of

a strong correlation between the countries represented on the Committee and the

newly advanced economic development who distance themselves from the older-

location of properties nominated.

styled developed G8 countries.

_ _ _ _ _ _L-Ll_

.......

IND I,\N WO H LD HElt l T \GE S ITES IN C 01<..T E X T

THI: RIG H T TO WO RLD HERI rAGE !

In the months following membership, Palestine moved swiftly to nominate

the Church of the Nativity on an emergency basis as World Heritage in danger,

The US contributed around 22 per cent of UNESCO's total budget. At first

glance, the United States withdrawal signaled a shortfall of around US$ 60 million.
Other countries including Turkey, Qatar, Algeria and Gabon made voluntary donations

before first being inscribed on the World Heritage List. In an open letter to the
committee, 15 organizations from Bethlehem imputed that the "international
community has a legal and moral responsibility to protect our sites". Referring to
the wider political context, including "45 years of illegal Israeli occupation", they
added: "We believe that this is a step in the direction of peace, providing historical

that on face value may have gone some way to remedy the financial crisis. But the
political economy of these specific transactions is more complex. First, the United
States was already in arrears with its contribution and then was withholding for an

justice to our city, its holy places and its people." The latter is fully in line with
UNESCO's aspirational stance, yet international politics and the interests of

additional two years. This ongoing deficit plus shortfalls in monies allocated to
the World Heritage Fund and for other extra-budgetary programms compounds
the crisis. In March 2012, the Director-General predicted a US$ 188 million cash

sovereign states swiftly sought to impede Palestine's progress.

shortfall. But in June at UNESCO Paris headquarters, I was told it was closer to US$

A statement from the US State Department voiced disappointment over the

request and urged the Committee not to become a "victim of politicisation". This
single word has been the subject of a recent outpouring on the history of USUNESCO relations. Put simply, 'politicization' for the US means the introduction
of issues for which they no longer have enough votes to exclude. Understandably,

240 million and that the effect was crippling on vital programmes, making it
almost impossible to keep global operations going. Second, the additional
international voluntary contributions will have little impact: some were earmarked
to return entirely to the donor nation like Algeria or allocated for special programmes
like Qatar and could not be funneled into the general budget.

Palestine argued that Israel and the US have sought to block their bid for heritage
status for the church by urging members of the committee to vote it down . During
the World Heritage meetings in St Petersburg, American representatives were heard

The US has suspended financial support to UNESCO twice before over political
decisions: once in 1977 when Israel's petition to be considered part of Europe was

decrying the United Nations system, the credibility of UNESCO, and claiming the
nomination was illegal. What was the right of the US to appeal, I heard one delegate

UNESCO some US$ 43 million in lost revenues (Valderrama 1995: 294). In fact, the
Bush administration's decision to rejoin UNESCO in 2004 was largely motivated

ask. The German ambassador echoed their views most vociferously: She called on

by the pressures of international politics and trying to shift his unilateralist cowboy
reputation. But, as the case of Palestine forcefully demonstrates, the US still runs
counter to a majority international position.

UNESCO's legal adviser to intervene and imposed her own authority as a lawyer to
denounce the nomination. Happily, the position of both the US and Germany toward
Palestine was isolated at best, as hundreds of delegates cheered the successful
inscription of Palestine's first site at the World Heritage Committee meetings.
But of course there have been longer-term political and financial consequences
for UNESCO afte/its recognition of Palestine in 2011. The US State Department
terminated the substantial funds it already owed and its continued funding going

denied and again in 1984 over national interest and cold war conspiracy, costing

On the ground, the creation of something called 'World Heritage: and the
recognition that ensues, can be incredibly powerful and liberating but as the US
backlash demonstrates, it can also incite and divide, not to mention impose
punishments.

In 1990, the US Congress passed legislation intended to block normalization

Richard Hoggart (2011), British academic and Assistant Director General of

UNESCO in the 1970s, captured the situation. He said, 'Sovereign States are easily
resentful.' But also more generally too, 'When one examines how many Member

of Palestinian relations and activities in the international community (Kersel and

Luke 2012). This 1990 law bans the appropriation of funds "for the United Nations

States have actually signed these instruments, how long it takes to bring most
Conventions into force, how often the instruments are flouted by States which

or any specialized agency thereof which accords the PLO the same standing as a
member state." In 1994, the Congress barred funding "any affiliated organization

have signed them or at least publicly associated themselves with their sentiments,
the record is less impressive. It then sometimes looks more like an exercise in
international public relations than a genuine advance in world law" (2011: 40).

forward (Meskell 2013b).

of the United Nations which grants full membership as a state to any organization
or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood."

INDIAN WORLD H E RITAG E SITES IN CONTI: X T

T HE RIGH T T O W O RLD HERI T A G E !

The recognition of Palestine underscores one of UNESCO's stated 'millennium

challenges'- addressing the issue of sovereignty in an increasingly transnational

infringement of basic human rights accorded to Native Americans in the US. It is

world, most notably in the face of minority claims and rights that often conflict
with nation state agendas. This is increasingly pressing when we examine the
inclusion and management of indigenous heritage places and practices within the
World Heritage arena. I want to look now at the brilliantly conceived World Heritage
Indigenous Peoples Council of Experts (WHIPCOE), proposed first in Australia in
2000 and sadly quashed in Helsinki a year later (Logan 2013, Meskell 2013a). This
then is a story of a radical, yet failed attempt to craft a global indigenous council
of experts within UNESCO, an organization founded on nation-state sovereignty.
The initiative was taken in response to concerns voiced by indigenous peoples
about their lack of involvement in the development and implementation of laws,
policies and plans for the protection of their knowledge, traditions and cultural
values that apply to their ancestral lands, within or comprising sites now designated
as World Heritage properties.
In World Heritage meetings during 2001, there seemed to be widespread
support and even enthusiasm for the initiative. A representative from the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights presented the history and position of indigenous
issues within the greater UN system. Representatives of ICOMOS, ICCROM and the
IUCN offered overviews of their mandates, structures, processes, activities, and
existing working relationships and interaction with indigenous people. From those
meetings, numerous suggestions were made for possible roles for WHIPCOE within
the World Heritage process. These included ensuring full consultation with local
people; strengthening the management of existing sites; promoting intangible
cultural heritage and traditional knowledge; and assisting with crafting management
guidelines and participation in the nomination and evaluation of sites (WHIPCOE
2001). A council '"'m ight afford opportunities for training, specifically sharing
successful indigenous site management approaches and practices between groups
internationally. Numerous follow-up meetings were held, letters of evaluation
requested from states parties, but the decision to formalize WHIPCOE was deferred
again and again.
Not surprisingly, the United States was resistant, claiming that they already
had 'a clearly defined legal relationship to indigenous peoples that would render
it inappropriate for us to submit such lists without consulting them' . This would
prove both a convenient and ironic deflection in retrospect given that the United
Nations was impelled to a mission a decade later to evaluate the scope of

another example of one country's defense of their territorial sovereignty, its

resistance to international jurisdiction and internal minority self-determination,
and its attempts to limit the scope of a progressive global initiative.
While the position of the US may be entirely predictable given its historic
relationships with native peoples and antipathy towards the UN system (Pavone
2008; Hoggart 2011), the scale of the French objections were excessive. First,
France objected to the institutionalization of a council on legal, practical and
financial grounds. Second, they claimed the issue of indigenous people was
adequately covered within the UN system through the UN Economic and Social
Council and the establishment of a permanent forum on indigenous Issues. They
expressed concern over jurisdiction, participation and authority. Yet, their key
indictment was the 'problem of sovereignty.' France's position was that indigenous
issues should be 'resolved in the framework of the Rules and Procedures of the
States Parties concerned'. France then recalled Resolution 2000/56 of the UNHCR
that encourages governments to establish national committees and not international
organs.
The position of France and the US espouses an internal national solution: one
that speaks to a kind of already established tolerance at home. Wendy Brown has
argued that such appeals work to overtly block the pursuit of equality or freedom.
Tolerance shores up troubled orders of power, repairs state legitimacy, glosses
troubled universal isms, and provides cover for imperialism. Such mobilizations
can in fact legitimize racist state violence.
France may seem historically removed from indigenous affairs, yet there are
sizeable groups within their borders who are considered indigenous, such as the
Bretons and also the Basques. Notably, France has not ratified the International
labor Organization Convention on indigenous people, nor has the United States.
It is estimated that at least half of the European countries do not involve local
stakeholders in the preparation of their Tentative lists for UNESCO and at least
two-thirds draft their lists without any public consultation (Zacharias 2010: 323).
The possibility of an advisory council of indigenous experts
crossing
national lines in solidarity over one nation's properties, even though they would
have had to be nominated in the first instance by states parties, was deemed
intolerable. The moment for connection and a powerful global alliance of
indigenous representatives had passed: dashed by two nations whose constitutions
are founded upon liberty and equality.

CON1EXT

Standing back from these events, it becomes clearer that UNESCO's universal
heritage goals are frustrated and impeded the interests of nations that cannot be
called to account, since UNESCO is underpinned by the desire for consensual and
diplomatic solutions within the wider UN structure, thus by the organization's
very definition and mandate. Perhaps there is a more fundamental divide too: the
possibilities for indigenous collaboration across state lines are complicated by
particular local cultures, national legal framings, histories of oppression, and
relationships with the state. These fraught specificities, while unifying in sentiment,
can also impinge upon implementing international processes and legislation.
Whether one is talking about Universal Human Rights or World Heritage, these
seemingly global elements (universal and world) remain stymied by statism.
Considering the future possibility of a global indigenous network to advise
on World Heritage, no one denies that there is a considerable and growing body of
shared expertise, successful management strategies, and alternative understandings
of heritage and heritage connections across natural and cultural properties. As the
continued desire for such a network underscores, webs of indigenous interaction
may be proliferating, so too the traffic in ideas and findings. Yet, the impossibilities
of actual instrumentalization are what I find compelling. How can organizations
like UNESCO be empowered to not only endorse, but to execute rights-based
strategies, much like they moved on Palestinian recognition and sovereigntyalbeit after many decades of campaigning? What structurally impedes this
progression? The short answer is the bounds of the Convention, which is in itself
a treaty that can have 'no third-party effect unless this is clearly intended by States
Parties and consented to by third states.' And while Palestinian recognition was
acceptable internationally, states are still very resistant to the insertion of indigenous
authority and over-sight, intra-nationally, within their own natural and cultural

.,

properties.
Assistant Director-General for Culture of UNESCO, Francesco Bandarin (2007:
193) has indirectly questioned the hegemony of statist structures, by asking whether
the heritage that lies outside the jurisdiction of states parties might be supported
indirectly, by establishing links with other international legal tools, or developing
partnerships with institutions and organizations expressed by civil society? This
opens the door for potential non-state party support and site nomination, but it
remains to be seen if such properties would be inscribed and under the auspices of
the nation? It may be possible to imagine this process, yet it rather confounds the
underlying structure of the United Nations.

THI:. R IG HT TO WORLD HeRI fAGl:. '

Thinking creatively, there may be other ways to incorporate indigenous heritage

expertise while bypassing state control. I recently spoke with a number of senior
officials at UNESCO headquarters about human rights, specifically indigenous rights
and those of connected communities around World Heritage properties. Given
that there is now in force a Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous People (United
Nations General Assembly 2007), ratified by some 150 nations, surely there could
be some provision within the mechanism of the 1972 Convention to make nations
accountable if groups were being forcibly relocated, marginalized or persecuted,
or .even excluded from the socio-economic benefits of their own heritage places.
ThiS.
have real consequences for indigenous groups and their rights to
restitution and self-determination.
Some officials felt that states parties would never allow such discussion at
the heritage forums, and would immediately suppress the invocation of the rights
charter in terms of national heritage. Yet, the most senior UNESCO officials
suggested that there might be a route to holding states accountable to the larger
when sites are being nominated. Indeed, there are more rigorous
provIsions now to determine whether states parties include all the relevant
stakeholders, working closely and equitably with communities and sharing benefits.
So voting to remove a World Heritage site already inscribed on the list may be
impossible on the grounds of harmful treatment to communities and would not
be supported by states parties. However, in theory, it may be possible not to inscribe
a new site if affected communities were marginalized or not properly consulted.
This was the argument put forward by Australia ICOMOS in 2001: without free,
proper, and informed consent (FPIC) sites could not be nominated (Disko 2010,
Hales et al. 2012, see also Ween 2012).
The failures of WHIPCOE and its aftermath is a prime example of the
powerlessness of UNESCO and its officers, no matter how well meaning. As UN
correspondent linda Fasulo (2009) put it, 'There are people out there who think
the UN has that kind of power and insidious influence, and the truth is the exact
opposite; the UN is too weak, not too strong.' As a second tier of the organization,
UNESCO is no different. It is even more complicated. And that is where I will draw
in my final example, the 2012 uprising in Mali and the destruction of world heritage
properties by rebels.
The most poignant example of the financial and political disasters facing the
World Heritage programme and its powerlessness to intervene in the politics of
preservation erupted in front of our eyes during the 2012 Committee sessions in

I ND I A,., WO RLD HLRIT \GE S I TES IN CO NTI:X

St Petersburg with the destruction in Mali. On June 28, the World Heritage
Committee discussed the failures of an earlier treaty, The Hague Convention for
the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954), that 115
states parties have ratified, including Mali in 1961.
ICOMOS proposed that Timbuktu be immediately placed on the World Heritage
in Danger List. Two days later, Director-General Bokova publicly called for a halt to
the destruction. It was as if the public spectacle of the international meetings
themselves further escalated the violations . Eleonora Mitrofanova, the World
Heritage Committee Chairperson, described the destruction as 'tragic news for us
all and, even more so for the inhabitants of Timbuktu who have cherished and
preserved this monument over more than seven centuries.' On July 1, Mali addressed
the Committee and appealed for assistance, but gave little outline of how UNESCO
could effectively respond in the face of ongoing rebel attacks. And while Committee
members were eager to find a solution, they were quickly frustrated by their inability
to act or offer concrete solutions on the ground. Some delegations complained

All we have are computers, papers and pens ... you're dealing with bandits
and criminals and we only have paper and pens. The international community
at this time has not set up specific actions and effective measures, which
those who take human life and destroy cultural heritage have, the call to
reason does not always produce the best outcome with these people.
Perhaps the spokesman for the Ansar Dine insurgents rather nailed the point:
'God is unique: he told reporters. 'All of this is haram (or forbidden in Islam). We
are all Muslims. UNESCO is what?' Here I am reminded of Fasulo's assertion that
we have a fundamental misunderstanding of organizations like UNESCO, fearing
them to be too strong, rather than too weak to be effective. As one former US
ambassador put it, there is no such thing as the UN, just 192 countries with different
agendas and a whole collection of civil servants who work there. We can also say,
following Singh, that good intentions aside, this is still an elite vision of the world
and ready to be exploited for various political expediencies. And who listens to
this vision? UNESCO spends a great deal of time and resources producing various

that such inaction called into question the Committee's integrity, yet most of their
time was spent drafting a statement of condemnation. France quipped that they

iterations of its education, science, communication, and culture ideals but much

were not addressing a state party, so could be fairly sure that the perpetrators
would not be reading the declaration or following it. Undaunted, the German

I think it is important to note, however, that at the present moment, powerful

Western nations on the World Heritage Committee are willing to extend offers of

ambassador called for one minute's silence, saying 'we have lost a child, we have

help and their own brand of expertise to a country like Mali, on a state-to-state
basis, yet UNESCO does not have the financial capacity or legislative mandate to
intervene. Remember too that many of those nations acted positively to recognize

lost a parent today.'

Deliberations over the situation in Mali and the draft declaration continued

less on connecting them to the everyday world of practice.

'rehabilitation and reconstruction' and were plagued by problems of translation

between the English and French terms for 'safeguarding'. All of this was captured

Palestine and supported the inscription of the Church of the Nativity. But many of
those same states parties remain reluctant to embrace a network of indigenous
experts who could effectively address and attend to problems in their own countries

fleetingly on vast screens with bilingual track-changes documents running

concurrently. Chairperson Mitrofanova posed the more uncomfortable questions:
When could UNESCO send a mission? Realistically it would be unsafe to do so

and indeed globally. It is easier to mobilize support for international injustice, for
over-turning regimes with whom we do not sympathize, to criticize heritage
practices that do not accord to pre-determined Western models of conservation-

now. Given the budgetary constraints, who exactly will pay for such promises of

rather than acknowledge otherness and other knowledges at home. Sovereign states
are indeed resentful. And regardless of UNESCO's own desires for structural
transformation, successful in the case of Palestine, not in the case of WHIPCOE,

the following day. Committee members wrangled for hours over wording like

reconstruction? The Indian ambassador imputed that UNESCO lacked both the
mandate and the capacity to take any action in Mali.
We cannot do this ... the international community has to do things at the
request of the state community ... we're getting into dangerous terrain.
In the end it was left to Mitrofanova to recapitulate UNESCO's economic and

TH E RIGHT T O WORL D HERITAGE!

political predicament:

those successes turn on the voting power of signatory nations, nbt bureaucrats
and programme officers in Paris. And as the US financial withdrawal underlines,
UNESCO's mission and global capacity is precarious at best, premised on the whims
of powerful, wealthy nations like the US, Russia and China. These are all daunting
facts for archaeologists, especially those working hard to support local, indigenous

INDIAN WORLD HERITAGE SITES IN CONTE X T

THE RIGH T TO WORLD HERITAGE'

and minority constituencies from the bottom up, only to see that heritage trumped

Meskell, l. M

2012 Th R h
".
'
e us to Inscribe: Reflections on the 35th Session of the
World Heritage Committee, UNESCO Paris, 2011, Journal of Field Archaeology
37: 145-51.

by global processes on a scale heretofore unimagined.

Right from its beginnings at the close of World War II, in the wake of violence,
devastation and intolerance, a situation largely unchanged to this day, UNESCO

would always live in 'the best of times and the worst of times. Poised between the
impossible expectations of its charter and the abysmal realities it had to confront

, 2013a, UNESCO and the Fate of the World Heritage Indigenous Peoples Council
of Experts (WHIPCOE), International Journal of Cultural Property 20: 155-74

- -, 2013b, .UNESCO's World Heritage Convention at 40: Challenging the

and PolitIcal Order of International Heritage Conservation, Current Anthro

daily, an elusive hope in the midst of multilateral conflict and confrontation, where

poverty, hunger, disease and oppression had first claims on the minds of men in
most parts of the world' (Preston, Herman, and Schiller 1989: 5). Cultural heritage
has been part of that elusive hope for a better world for the past 40 years, and as
the UNESCO tries to educate the world, we as archaeologists have to educate
ourselves to the political economies at work in our research, at our sites, our host
nations and amongst our many communities.

- -, 2014, States of Conservation: Protection, Politics and Pacting within UNESCO'

World Herita
C
.
s
ge ommlttee, Anthropological Quarterly 87: 267-92.
Pavone, V., 2008, From the Labyrinth of the World to the Paradise of the Heart.
SCIence and H
.
.
.
.
uman/sm In UNESCO's Approach to Globalization, New York:
LeXington.
Preston,
S.

REFERENCES
Bandarin, F., 2007, World Heritage: Challenges for the Millennium. Paris: UNESCO.
Claudi, I.B., 2011, The New Kids on the Block: BRICs in the World Heritage Committee,
MA Thesis, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway.
Disko, S., 2010, World Heritage Sites in Indigenous Peoples' Territories: Ways of Ensuring

w.,

E.S. Herman and H. Schiller, 1989, Hope and Folly: The United States and

UNESCO 7945-7985, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Ingh, J.P., 2011, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizat"
(UNESCO): Creating Norms for a Complex World, London: Routledg
Ion
Stoczkowski W 2009
e.
,.,
, UNESCO's Doctrine of Human Diversity: A Secular Soteriology'
Anthropology Today 25: 7-11.
.

Respect for Indigenous Cultures, Values and Human Rights, in D. OffenhauBer,

UNESCO, 2011, Evaluation of the Global Strategy and the PACT Initiative (WHC-ll/
35.COM/9A) 27 May 2011, Paris: UNESCO.

W. Zimmerli, and M.-T. Alberts (eds.), World Heritage and Cultural Diversity,

United Nations General Assembly, 2007, Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Pe

Cottbus: German Commission for UNESCO, pp. 167-77.

Hnp:llwww.UN.ORG!EsA/socOEV/UNPFII/ENloECLARATION.HTMl.

Fasulo, l., 2009, An Insider's Guide to the UN, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Valderrama, F., 1995, A History of UNESCO, Paris: UNESCO.

Hales, R.J., J. Rynne, C. Howlett, J. Devine and V. Hauser, 2012, Indigenous Free Prior

Ween, G.B., 2012, World Heritage and Indigenous Rlghts'.

Informed Consent: A Case for Self-determination in World Heritage Nomination

Processes, International Journal of Heritage Studies: 1-18.
Hoggart, R., 2011, An Idea and its Servants: UNESCO from Withi, Piscataway, NJ:
Transaction'.

International Journal of Heritage Studies 18: 257-70.

I
op e,

Norwegian Examples,

WHIPCOE, 2001, These are Our Powerful Words: Summary Report of the Workin
Workshop on the World Heritage Indigenous People's Council of Expert:
'
WInnipeg, Manitoba, November 5-8, 2001.

Kersel, M.M. and C. Luke, 2012, A Crack in the Diplomatic Armor: The United States

Zacharias, D., 2010, The UNESCO Regime for the Protection of World Heritage as

and the Palestinian Authority's Bid for UNESCO Recognition, Journal of Field

Prototype of an Autonomy-Gaining International Institution, in A. von Bogdandy

Archaeology 37: 143-44.

(ed.), The Exercise of Public Authority by International Institutions, Berlin:

Springer-Verlag: 301-36.

Labadi, S., 2013, UNESCO, Cultural Heritage and Outstanding Universal Value, Walnut
Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
Logan, W., 2013, Australia, Indigenous Peoples and World Heritage from Kakadu to
Cape York: State Party Behaviour under the World Heritage Convention, Journal
of Social Archaeology 13.