World

Heritage Sites
Mohammad Habib Reza PhD
Assistant Professor

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World Heritage Sites
Convention for the World Heritage List

What is World Heritage Site

A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area which is selected by the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as having cultural,
historical, scientific or other form of significance, and is legally protected by
international treaties. The sites are judged important to the collective interests of
humanity.

...started in 1977/78 In 1972 the UNESCO passed the World Heritage Convention. The Convention is a
legal treaty that binds individual nation states together. By signing the convention /

with twelve entries, treaty, each country pledges to conserve not only the World Heritage sites situated
on its territory, but also to protect its national heritage.

and by 2015 it has Part of the convention was the founding of a World Heritage List that includes all
heritage sites that need to be preserved and conserved for the benefit of humanity.

over 1000 so called The identification, evaluation and designation process is complex and we will talk
about it later. For the moment we want to focus on the success of the list.

“properties .....”

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Convention for the World Heritage List

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Convention for the World Heritage List

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World Heritage Convention

One key result of the preservation movement, fostered by the Apollo 8 picture, was
the 1972 Stockholm UN conference on Human Environment, which took place in
June 1972 in Stockholm, Sweden. It was the first global conference on the
environment and addressed the challenges of a growing world population, the
dangers of pollution, and the issue of resource depletion.

Besides stressing the need for sustainability, the issue of conservation was a central
part of the discussion. Members realized that conservation meant not only natural
resources but also heritage. The United States was a key player in this discussion.
Seven years earlier, in 1965, the U.S. had organized a conference on heritage
preservation. The head of the American delegation was Russell Train, a lawyer by
training and head of the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA), which he had
helped to create. As a legal advisor to US President Richard Nixon, Train
recommended an international trust "to identify, establish, develop and manage
the world's superb natural and scenic areas and historic sites for the present and
future benefit of the entire world citizenry."
In 1968, the year of the Apollo 8 lunar mission, the International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) developed similar proposals for its members. All
these proposals and considerations went into the World Heritage Convention that
was adopted by the UNESCO General Conference in November 1972, six months
after the Stockholm conference.

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CULTURAL HERITAGE

•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 points of view.

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NATURAL HERITAGE

•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.

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World Heritage Sites
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World Heritage Committee

Meeting in Paris

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World Heritage Sites
criteria defining Outstanding Universal Value
CULTURAL HERITAGE
I."represents a masterpiece of human creative genius and
cultural significance”
II."exhibits an important interchange of human values, over
a span of time, or within a cultural area of the world, on
developments in architecture or technology, monumental
arts, town-planning, or landscape design”
III."to bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a
cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which
has disappeared"
IV."is an outstanding example of a type of building,
architectural, or technological ensemble or landscape which
illustrates a significant stage in human history”
V."is an outstanding example of a traditional human
settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a
culture, or human interaction with the environment
especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact
of irreversible change”
VI."is directly or tangibly associated with events or living
traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and
literary works of outstanding universal significance”
World Heritage List
NATURAL HERITAGE
VII."contains superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional
natural beauty and aesthetic importance"
VIII."is an outstanding example representing major stages of Earth's
history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological
processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic
or physiographic features"
IX."is an outstanding example representing significant on-going
ecological and biological processes in the evolution and
development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine
ecosystems, and communities of plants and animals"
X."contains the most important and significant natural habitats for in-
situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing
threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of
view of science or conservation.”
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World Heritage Sites Brihadisvara temple at Tanjavu, South India (1002-1010
Convention for the World Heritage List AD)

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World Heritage Sites Brihadisvara temple at Tanjavu, South India (1002-1010
Convention for the World Heritage List AD)

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BRIHADISVARA TEMPLE at TANJAVU, SOUTH INDIA

Criterion (i): The three Chola temples of Southern India represent an

outstanding creative achievement in the architectural conception of
the pure form of the Dravida type of temple.

Criterion (ii): The Brihadisvara Temple at Thanjavur became the first

great example of the Chola temples, followed by a development of
which the other two properties also bear witness.

Criterion (iii): The three Great Chola Temples are an exceptional and
the most outstanding testimony to the development of the
architecture of the Chola Empire and the Tamil civilisation in Southern
India.

Criterion (iv): The Great Chola temples at Thanjavur, at

Gangaikondacholapuram and Darasuram are outstanding examples of
the architecture and the representation of the Chola ideology.

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World Heritage Sites Brihadisvara temple at Tanjavu, South India (1002-1010
Convention for the World Heritage List AD)

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World Heritage Sites Brihadisvara temple at Tanjavu, South India (1002-1010
Convention for the World Heritage List AD)

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World Heritage Sites
Convention for the World Heritage List

“ The representative of Algeria noted that the present composition of the World Heritage
Committee was somewhat imbalanced in terms of geographical representation, with a
particular lack of representation of African States Parties. This meant that there was a
resulting imbalance in the representation of cultural regions. The Algerian representative
suggested that the Bureau and the Committee should re-examine the voting procedure
for the General Assembly of States Parties.

The Committee agreed that there was a need to ensure an equitable representation of the
different regions and cultures of the world, as is stated in Article 8, paragraph 1 of the
Convention. It requested the Secretariat to present the Bureau and the Committee with
proposals which would respond to this need and which could eventually be adopted by
the 7th General Assembly of States Parties in 1989.”

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