See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/274461355

Multilateralism and UNESCO World Heritage: Decision-making, States Parties

and political processes

Article in International Journal of Heritage Studies · May 2015

DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2014.945614

CITATIONS READS

116 1,571

4 authors:

Lynn Meskell C. Liuzza

University of Pennsylvania Stanford University
158 PUBLICATIONS 6,137 CITATIONS 15 PUBLICATIONS 333 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Enrico Bertacchini Saccone Donatella

Università degli Studi di Torino 35 PUBLICATIONS 561 CITATIONS
67 PUBLICATIONS 1,089 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Lynn Meskell on 12 August 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

This article was downloaded by: [171.67.216.22]
On: 05 April 2015, At: 11:19
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

International Journal of Heritage

Studies
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjhs20

Multilateralism and UNESCO World

Heritage: decision-making, States
Parties and political processes
a a b b
L. Meskell , C. Liuzza , E. Bertacchini & D. Saccone
a
Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA,
USA
b
Department of Economics and Statistics “Cognetti de Martiis”,
University of Torino, Torino, Italy
Published online: 12 Aug 2014.
Click for updates

To cite this article: L. Meskell, C. Liuzza, E. Bertacchini & D. Saccone (2015) Multilateralism and
UNESCO World Heritage: decision-making, States Parties and political processes, International
Journal of Heritage Studies, 21:5, 423-440, DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2014.945614

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2014.945614

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or
howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising
out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
 Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-
and-conditions
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015
 International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2015
Vol. 21, No. 5, 423–440, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2014.945614

Multilateralism and UNESCO World Heritage: decision-making,

States Parties and political processes
L. Meskella*, C. Liuzzaa, E. Bertacchinib and D. Sacconeb
a
Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA; bDepartment of
Economics and Statistics “Cognetti de Martiis”, University of Torino, Torino, Italy
(Received 11 May 2014; final version received 10 July 2014)

Why have deliberations over World Heritage sites become such a volatile arena
for the performance of international tensions, new political alliances and chal-
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

lenges to global cooperation? Across UN platforms, the failures of multilateral-

ism are increasingly evident. We suggest that decision-making within the World
Heritage Committee is no different given that politicisation is now rife through-
out their deliberations. Specifically we ask how have multipolarity and fragmen-
tation developed within United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organisation’s (UNESCO) World Heritage programme, an organisation dedicated
to peace building, tolerance and mutual understanding and international co-oper-
ation? This paper examines trends from the last decade of UNESCO’s World
Heritage Committee meetings, specifically the nominations of properties for
inscription on the World Heritage List. Our findings suggest that the recommen-
dations presented by UNESCO’s Advisory Bodies are increasingly at odds with
the final decisions adopted by the World Heritage Committee. The process by
which evaluations are formulated by these experts is also being questioned,
opening up larger debates about the validity and transparency of the evaluation
criteria and process. We go on to outline the regional and geopolitical trends at
work in the Committee and to question whether site inscription is affected by a
State Party’s presence on the Committee. While once considered the realm of
European States Parties and their particular style of properties, our analysis
reveals that the demographics of the Committee in the last decade have gradually
shifted. Finally, this leads us to question whether the older style polarisation of
‘the West and the Rest’ remains the most salient divide today.
Keywords: UNESCO; World Heritage; governance; international politics;
conservation

UNESCO’s World Heritage Program

In 1945, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
(UNESCO) was created with a constitution mandating ‘the conservation and protec-
tion of the world’s inheritance of books, works of art and monuments of history and
science’. Soon after, this commitment transformed into proactive international assis-
tance: the first mission was launched in 1959 for the Nubian monuments of Egypt,
which were threatened by the construction of the Aswan Dam. In 1965, the idea of
a World Heritage Trust was first proposed during the White House Conference in

*Corresponding author. Email: lmeskell@stanford.edu

© 2014 Taylor & Francis

 424 L. Meskell et al.

the US and the term ‘world heritage’ was coined (Bandarin 2007; Allais 2013, 7).
In 1972, the General Conference of UNESCO adopted The Convention Concerning
the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (UNESCO 1972). It estab-
lished a new provision for the international and collective protection of heritage with
‘outstanding universal value’ (see Titchen 1996; Jokilehto and Cameron 2008;
Labadi 2013).1 While there were originally only a handful of nations at the time of
ratification, today there are 191 signatories. The Convention created a set of obliga-
tions to protect the past for future generations, an aspiration for a shared sense of
belonging and a global solidarity (Choay 2001, 140).
The World Heritage Centre (WHC) was established in 1992 to act as the Secre-
tariat and coordinator within UNESCO for all matters related to the Convention.
The Centre organises the annual sessions of the World Heritage Committee (the
Committee) and provides advice to States Parties in the preparation of site nomina-
tions. The WHC along with the Advisory Bodies also organises international assis-
tance from the World Heritage Fund and coordinates both the reporting on the
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

condition of sites and the emergency action undertaken when a site is threatened.
The Advisory Bodies are comprised of international experts who conduct moni-
toring missions and evaluations: the International Centre for the Study of Preserva-
tion and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), the International Council on
Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the International Union for Conservation of
Nature (IUCN).2 For example, individual evaluators from ICOMOS might include
archaeologists, structural engineers or mud-brick conservators, each with their own
disciplinary, national and personal priorities and attachments (Turtinen 2000;
Lafrenz Samuels 2009). ICOMOS and the IUCN communicate their findings in
lengthy reports and presentations at international meetings, although their technical
approaches and priorities are being increasingly challenged. Recently, ICOMOS has
been subject to extensive criticism from States Parties, especially those from non-
Western nations (Claudi 2011, 36), ranging from their factual errors to Eurocentric
bias (see Rico 2008; Meskell 2012, 2013b). Unlike the IUCN that has partnerships
and donors, ICOMOS relies heavily on UNESCO’s contributions3 and has subse-
quently faced a funding crisis of late. Their
lack of funding is a major and permanent problem in the World Heritage system, and
even more so for ICOMOS, whose voluntary real and in-kind contributions to the
World Heritage process for 2012 totaled more than €500,000, an amount that is unsus-
tainable. (ICOMOS 2012, 11)
As an intergovernmental agency and part of the UN family, States Parties that are
signatories to the Convention are in fact the most powerful decision-makers in
World Heritage (Askew 2010; Meskell 2013b), particularly those that have represen-
tation on the Committee. The Committee is made up of 21 States Parties, elected at
a General Assembly, that serve a four-year term.4 The Committee’s mandate is to
develop policies and overarching framework for the implementation of the Conven-
tion, to decide on new nominations to the World Heritage List, oversee monitoring
and managing of sites already on that List and consider the need for special mea-
sures regarding World Heritage in Danger. In recent years, Committee representa-
tives have shifted from being archaeological and environmental experts in favour of
state-appointed ambassadors and politicians. The Committee has the final say on
whether a property is inscribed on the World Heritage List or on the World Heritage
in Danger List.5 States Parties with World Heritage sites garner international and
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 425

national prestige, have access to the World Heritage Fund for monetary assistance
and can tap the potential benefits of heightened public awareness, tourism and
economic development.
This paper examines trends from the last decade of UNESCO World Heritage
Committee meetings, specifically the nominations of properties for inscription on
the World Heritage List. We take a qualitative and quantitative approach to analyse
patterns in decision-making processes regarding inscriptions by State Parties at the
World Heritage Committee sessions. Qualitatively, our findings are based on obser-
vations of four sessions of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee (2011–2014),
as well as interviews with senior UNESCO officials and representatives of national
delegations. Along with other anthropologists researching UN organisations (Wright
1998; Bendix 2013; Müller 2013) and political negotiations, especially within
UNESCO (Schmitt 2012; Brumann 2014), we are interested in how organisations
such as UNESCO have global impacts, albeit in often unexpected and unpredictable
ways that are not always revealed in official agendas. Following Müller (2013, 10),
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

when anthropologists study the actions of individuals and states within international
agencies, these bodies appear at the same time more active, contradictory and per-
haps even less ‘rational’. Yet if researches rely solely on the documents, substantive
political issues are often masked as technical ones, thus ‘being there’ to track the
complex machinations is essential.
On the quantitative side, we collected and organised information from the Sum-
mary Records and other World Heritage Committee official documents for the period
2003–2013. For each nomination, we tracked the Advisory Bodies’ recommenda-
tion, the final decision by the World Heritage Committee, the number of delegates
and each intervention by State Parties during the sessions. Only a few studies have
adopted a quantitative approach to investigate patterns in the selection of properties
for inscription on the World Heritage List. Frey, Pamini, and Steiner (2013) and
Reyes (2014) use the number of World Heritage sites per country to explain the
determinants of the imbalance in the List. At a more detailed level, studies by
Bertacchini and Saccone (2012) and Reyes use both site nominations and final
inscriptions to analyse the nomination activity by countries and the factors affecting
the probability of inscription. The data presented in this paper focuses on a shorter
period of analysis (2003–2013), but it provides more detailed information on the
procedural and substantive aspects of the decision-making process, namely how
Advisory Body recommendations and States Parties’ actions in the World Heritage
Committee interact in the final selection of sites. We argue that this methodology
provides a more effective approach to highlight the tensions emerging in the World
Heritage decision-making process.

Auditing cultures
UNESCO regularly commissions internal reports and audits, as do other agencies
and national delegations on the World Heritage programme and since 2010, there
have been some startling findings. A Norwegian report to the 34th session of the
Committee (2010) found that over the previous 10–15 years, an increasing politicisa-
tion has developed whereby policy has trumped technical expertise. Reporting on
the meeting in Brasilia, The Economist (2010) signalled that ‘the UN agency (was)
bending its own rules under pressure from member states’. During the General
Assembly of the State Parties to the World Heritage Convention in 2009, half the
 426 L. Meskell et al.

exiting Committee was replaced by new delegations. Some of our informants,

including senior officials and delegates, attribute the changed dynamics in the
Committee to this moment and so, we conduct our analyses both before and after
this new geo-political configuration of the Committee. Our findings in terms of the
frequency of interventions during the meetings show that Brazil, China and Egypt
are the most vocal nations. France, Switzerland, Mali, Barbados and South Africa
closely followed in the number of times they took the floor.
Moreover, the Norwegian report claimed (2010, 3) that China had put pressure
on other members to secure their own nominated sites for inscription before formal
Committee discussions, with several State Parties expressing concern. Brazil, as host
nation and chair of the Committee in 2010, also advocated that the Committee itself
could take decisions beyond the guidelines of the Convention, since they were the
highest decision-making body. When interviewed, some of the key delegates attend-
ing the Brazilian session of the Committee agreed that their actions were central in
creating this new arena of self-interest and overt politicisation. In their view, Brazil
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

needed to secure the inscription of São Francisco Square in São Cristóvão on the
List because of upcoming national elections.
Quantitative evidence of decision-making processes behind nominations for the
World Heritage List supports such findings. Charts 1 and 2 both indicate a clear
decline in the concordance rates between Advisory Bodies’ recommendations and
the Committee’s final decisions on nomination of new properties to the World
Heritage List. The evidence clearly shows that the recommendations of the Advisory
Bodies have been increasingly questioned over the last decade. Notably, however, in
2013, we see changes following concerted efforts made in the Advisory Bodies rec-
ommendations to pre-empt and adapt to Committee dissatisfaction (as discussed
below).
Some so-called ‘neutral’ nations like Estonia and Switzerland continue to argue
for scientific and expert-based decision-making. In general, however, the Norwegian
report suggests that decisions were taken behind the scenes rather than through pub-
lic debate, including controversial territorial cases such as Jerusalem (Palestine and
Israel, see De Cesari 2010; Dumper and Larkin 2012) and Preah Vihear (Cambodia
and Thailand, see Hauser-Schäublin 2011; Williams 2011).
The Norwegian report also described the World Heritage in Danger List as
increasingly ignoring expert advice from the IUCN in favour of political agreements
between States Parties. This, they argued in the controversial case of extraction and
export of forest products from the Madagascan site of Atsinanana, reduced the
Convention to a type of environmental agreement. In the case of the Old City of
Jerusalem, politics were at a premium: it was reported that the 2007 Action Plan
was not supported by Israel, and Palestinian and Jordanian experts were excluded
while illegal Israeli excavations continued. This situation has continued, unabated,
to the present.
In 2010, an external auditor was tasked with assessing UNESCO’s priority initia-
tive, the ‘Global Strategy for a Credible, Representative and Balanced World
Heritage List’ (UNESCO 2011a). This audit reinforced that Committee decisions
increasingly diverge from the scientific opinions of the Advisory Bodies, contribut-
ing to a drift towards a more ‘political’ rather than ‘heritage’ approach to the Con-
vention. Contrary to Article 9-3 of the Convention, sufficient representation is not
being given to heritage experts within the national delegations and these are now
largely political appointments. Moreover, amendments are being made to draft
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 427

decisions even before a site is publicly presented and several delegations lodged
official complaints (ICOMOS 2011, 6).
UNESCO claims that the impact of the Convention has grown over time, inspir-
ing greater involvement by governments, communities and individuals, universities,
foundations and the private sector (Bandarin 2007). Yet inscription has become a
political tool for nations to bolster their sovereign interests, using global patrimony
as a pawn. Collective decision-making and the overarching responsibility for the
conservation of sites, once the remit of national delegates with heritage expertise,
have been replaced by excessive backstage lobbying by politicians (Hoggart 2011,
86; Cassel and Pashkevich 2013) and the bargaining power of nations with geo-
political alliances based on geography, religion, trade partnerships or anti-Western
sentiment. Thus, the ideal of collective responsibility, both ethical and financial,
once so central to the ideals of the Convention, is losing ground. Concern for local
and indigenous community involvement is similarly being curtailed by powerful
nation states (Logan 2013; Meskell 2013a), despite UNESCO’s own attempts to rec-
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

ognise indigenous expertise. Irrespective of scholarly debate about global heritage

regimes, the statist desire to participate in the World Heritage arena continues to
expand and therefore it is critical to examine the institutional political economies
and capillary networks of power that underlie its processes on the ground.
We argue that state agendas have come to eclipse substantive discussions of the
merits of site nominations during World Heritage Committee sessions as well as the
attendant issues of community benefits, the participation of indigenous stakeholders
or threats from mining and exploitation (Meskell 2011, 2012, 2014; see also Askew
2010; Logan 2012). We suggest that the specificities of cultural and natural sites
during their inscription, protection or even destruction have become largely irrele-
vant in substance, yet highly valued in state-to-state negotiations and transactions.
Site specificity seems largely irrelevant to the States Parties, one could say that sites
have lost their heritage value.6 Instead they operate as transactional devices whereby
cultural, and thus political, recognition both masks and enables a multifarious
network of economic values (Di Giovine 2008; Salazar 2010b).
With the growing dominance of strategic political alliances within the Committee
of 21 states, the recommendations of the Advisory Bodies have been increasingly
overturned (The Economist 2010; Jokilehto 2011). Vinay Sheel Oberoi, then Indian
Ambassador to UNESCO, consistently critiqued the work of ICOMOS throughout
the 10-day meeting in St Petersburg in 2012. During the discussion over damming
the Portuguese Alto Douro Wine Region, Oberoi imputed that the ‘pyramids would
never have been built if ICOMOS and the World Heritage Committee had been
there’.
This polarity of positions can also be quantified by comparing the Advisory
Bodies recommendations and final World Heritage Committee decisions in 295
cases from 2003 to 2013 (Table 1). It is worth noting that in only seven cases (high-
lighted in grey), the final Committee decision is lower than Advisory Bodies. The
overall trend has been to push all final decisions toward the category of Inscription,
so from Referral to Inscription, from Deferral to Referral or even Inscription and so
on.7 In almost every case, there is complete agreement between the Advisory Bodies
and the Committee when the recommendation is to Inscribe a property.
When we examine decision-making over the past decade, more closely in Tables
2 and 3, it is clear that during the later period the final decisions taken by the World
Heritage Committee have been more divergent than in the previous one for
 428 L. Meskell et al.

Table 1. Nominations according to Advisory Body recommendation and Committee

decision, 2003–2013.

Table 2. Nominations according to Advisory Body recommendation and Committee

decision, 2003–2007.
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

Table 3. Nominations according to Advisory Body recommendation and Committee

decision, 2008–2013.

nominations recommended by the Advisory Bodies for Referral, Deferral and

non-Inscription.8 This pattern is also evident with the concordance factor analysis
above. From our interviews, we found that, given the negative trend observed and
the tensions expressed, some members of the Advisory Bodies were themselves
advised to present more favourable recommendations to the Committee in 2013 (see
Chart 1 and 2 above).
Our work highlights that different bodies conceive of the problems in very differ-
ent ways. Rao (2010), now Director of the WHC, believes that there are systemic
problems underlying the Committee’s criticism of the Advisory Bodies. These can
be glossed as failures in the World Heritage system to fully communicate and work
with States Parties rather than simply evaluate them. Rao (2010, 164) considers the
‘conflict of interest’ argument as one of the greatest ironies of the World Heritage
process and one that runs counter to the spirit of the Convention. Wealthy nations
such as China can spend millions of dollars on nomination dossiers and thus expect
that their investment will guarantee site inscription. More than US$5 million has
been offered in preparatory assistance for some 360 nominations, and ultimately
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 429

Chart 1. Advisory Body Recommendation and Committee Decision concordance.

Note: Concordance factor between Advisory Body recommendation and World Heritage
Committee final decision per year for all sites.
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

Chart 2. Committee Membership and Site Inscription concordance.

Note: The concordance factor for sites successfully nominated by State Parties on the World
Heritage Committee (in black) was higher in the first years but has sharply declined recently.
This also reflects on a diverging concordance factor between the two groups throughout the
whole period (69% for countries on the Committee vs. 62% for those not represented).

only 18.5% resulted in site inscription (Rao 2010, 165). In his view, this vast
expenditure of time, effort and money would be better channelled into a system of
cooperation and mentoring. The Advisory Bodies have other suggestions. The
IUCN, for example, insists that the credibility of the Convention is in jeopardy and
that the WHC must provide consistent advice to the Committee on the observation
of the Operational Guidelines and the Rules of Procedure (IUCN 2012). They sug-
gest a greater role for the Advisory Bodies and other technical partners, better dia-
logue with States Parties, a focus on increased capacity at the site and state level
and a raft of other measures. Outspoken Brazilian and Indian delegates during the
2013 meetings suggested changing the Operational Guidelines, bringing in indepen-
dent evaluators, reducing the role of the Advisory Bodies, inscribing a larger quota
of sites per country and so on. Ideally, some national delegates would see the World
Heritage process as enabling and collaborative rather than competitive or
rule-bound. Others like Estonia expressed their gratitude to the Advisory Bodies but
 430 L. Meskell et al.

remained concerned about political pressures from national governments and the
dwindling heritage expertise within the delegations.

UNESCO and multilateralism

Given the developments outlined above, we might well ask if UNESCO diplomacy
is faltering. Why have discussions about World Heritage become an arena for inter-
national tensions, political alliance building and challenges to global cooperation?
Today, the politics around designating World Heritage are not dissimilar from those
fraught international debates over nuclear disarmament or climate change. As noted
above, the World Heritage Committee has become increasingly confrontational in
recent years, as have the issues it now faces (The Economist 2010; UNESCO
2011b; Bertacchini and Saccone 2012; Brumann 2012). Consider the 2011
UNESCO recognition of Palestine that precipitated the US financial withdrawal
(Kersel and Luke 2012; Meskell 2013b) or the Russian support of Syria despite calls
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

for recognising Syrian sites as endangered (Meskell 2014). Transgovernmental net-

works comprised of informal horizontal peer-to-peer interactions, including vote
exchanges (Slaughter and Hale 2010), have become the norm. However, across the
UN, the state is not receding, rather it is changing the way sovereignty is exercised
(Slaughter 2004), leading to new forms of negotiation and governance. Disaggrega-
tion into their component government institutions effectively enables states to
remain the central force in transnational governance and allows their officials to
interact quasi-autonomously with their foreign counterparts (Slaughter 2004, 173).
Further, blurring the boundaries of domestic and international, pressures from pri-
vate interests whether individuals, companies and NGOs are also becoming more
common, especially regarding World Heritage properties.
In this section, we draw heavily from the work of Hale and Held (2011; Hale,
Held, and Young 2013), specifically their analysis of failing multilateral cooperation
across the UN system. We build upon their work and ask how has this situation
arisen in UNESCO, an organisation dedicated to peace building, tolerance and
mutual understanding and international co-operation? It is a truism that we now face
an ever more interconnected world and that our problems are more global and
require solutions that traverse nation states and require them to work effectively
together. Changes in technology, mobility and security have rendered domestic
issues more global in scope. On the other hand, more complex issues even in the
heritage realm, including conflict, development and climate change also generate
multipolarity and fragmentation at the international level. The failures of multilater-
alism can be seen across the UN and the seemingly neutral and inconsequential
sphere of World Heritage is not exempt. This is not simply the result of plodding
negotiations, insufficient enforcement or the power imbalances between states that
we are all familiar with in the intergovernmental sphere (Hale and Held 2011, 3).
Moreover, since institutions like UNESCO rely on the consent and participation of
sovereign nations, their decisions often mirror the very lowest level of ambition to
prevail. This lack of cooperation has serious consequences for sovereign nations,
indigenous and minority communities as well as heritage places themselves.
After WW2, there was both growing institutionalisation and inter-reliance lead-
ing to what has been termed a cycle of ‘self-reinforcing interdependence’ (Hale,
Held, and Young 2013, 4). However, economic globalisation and the rise of new
players, such as China, India and Brazil, have altered the ability for states to always
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 431

effectively cooperate multilaterally. As the chart below demonstrates, regions like

Europe and North America, and Asia and the Pacific score the highest concordance
factor with the decisions of the Advisory Bodies, while the Arab States and Africa
reveal the greatest divergence, and hence one could posit dissatisfaction. The victors
of the post-war era and the architects of the UN system, the United States and
Europe, have faced increasing difficulty in securing international agreements. They
too have more often become the targets in forums like World Heritage, being regu-
larly criticised for their historical dominance, elitism and outmoded priorities.
Indeed, our own observations at World Heritage Committee meetings confirm that
emerging nations want to increasingly set the agenda and control negotiations and
have, in recent years, been extremely effective (Meskell 2011, 2012). This rising
multipolarity increases the number of nations whose support must be garnered for
cooperation, while the leverage of individual players such as the United States is
concomitantly diminished.
Thomas Weiss argues that as new countries emerged to become economic forces
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

in the global economy, they sought new forms of political influence and voice,
including in the sphere of World Heritage. Throughout annual World Heritage Com-
mittee sessions, we have witnessed how emerging countries not only want a larger
stake in agenda setting, they increasingly have the power and connections to secure
it (Weiss 2012, 8). With the end of colonialism in Africa for example, new regimes
have become suspicious of Western power. As exemplified in Chart 3, in the World
Heritage arena, we can see widespread regional dissatisfaction with the recommen-
dations by ICOMOS and the IUCN decisions as opposed to the subsequent Commit-
tee decisions adopted over the past decade. Euro-American economic and
institutional hegemony similarly came into question and their ability to coerce other
states into a system of global order was subsequently reduced (Weiss 2012, 22).
Hale and his colleagues (2013, 16) posit four reasons behind the current impasse.
First, the number of international actors has vastly increased due to the success of
emerging economies and with that has come diverse interests that require accommo-
dation. The number of UN member states has grown from 51 in 1946 to 193 in
2013. Within the World Heritage Committee, one can witness the influence of the

Chart 3. Advisory Body recommendation and Committee decision by region.

Note: The concordance factor between Advisory Body recommendation and Committee
decision during the period 2003–2013 according to the geographical origin of the nominated
site.
 432 L. Meskell et al.

BRICS coalition of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (Claudi 2011;
Meskell 2013b, 2014). This group has a joint mission, set out in the Sanya
Declaration,9 and their uniform voting has been observed across the UN General
Assembly (Ferdinand 2012). These new powers have economies that are likely to
rival and then surpass those of Japan, European countries and even the United States
in the medium term according to Held. ‘This rising multipolarity, combined with
globalization’ Hale and Held (2011, 30–31) argue, ‘is a powerful driver of interde-
pendence, because it increases the number of powerful countries whose consent is
required or cooperation, while simultaneously decreasing the leverage of any one
country – even the most powerful – to compel a certain outcome’. This also means
that the number of ‘veto players’ in global governance has increased.
Second, some policy-making processes inherited from the post-war era are now
dysfunctional across the UN. Third, the easier issues of cooperation have been
achieved, while deeper interdependence requires more sophisticated and powerful
institutions that are themselves harder to create. Fourth, the proliferation of institu-
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

tions has led to a fragmentation that can restrict rather than assist cooperation. In
1951, there were 123 intergovernmental organisations and 832 NGOs: in 2011, that
number had dramatically risen to 7608 and 56,834, respectively (Hale, Held, and
Young 2013, 45). Such situations should not be surprising, however, as they are in
essence endemic to the process of cooperation and in some ways reflect the suc-
cesses of the UN system of inclusion and democracy.
These new modalities lead to cross-sectoral alliances and arrangements and such
developments can be observed across international organisations such as the UN, or
the World Bank and IMF. Several studies reveal that a developing country with a
seat on the UN Security Council significantly enhances flows of aid from the US as
well as credits from the IMF and World Bank: the driving effect being vote buying
(Dreher, Sturm, and Vreeland 2009a, 2009b; Flues, Michaelowa, and Michaelowa
2010). In terms of World Heritage, we question whether technical aspects like con-
servation or management are still paramount or whether member countries’ special
interests and their lobby groups have major influence.
Some of the most active and high-profile nations within the World Heritage
arena from 2002 to 2013 in terms of site nominations are China (17), Iran (14),
India and Italy (12), Germany (11), Mexico and Russian Federation (10) and France
and Israel (9).10 Already political at this stage, we can see in the case of Israel that
despite the many nominations, proportionately few have been inscribed and we attri-
bute this to a general failure in international support.
In our analysis related to the composition of the World Heritage Committee from
2003 to 2013, we have noticed that six nations served on the Committee for a total
of seven years: India, Egypt, China, South Africa, Nigeria and the Russian Federa-
tion. Even though not numerically dominant on the Committee, BRICS countries
have still dominated the debate over the past 11 years. Our analysis traces the num-
ber of verbal interventions made by States Parties in the plenary sessions for inscrip-
tion of new properties to determine who is most vocal and influential in the World
Heritage process. India (158) and Egypt (132) have the highest number of interven-
tions, whereas China (87) and South Africa (78) ranked much lower. Even Brazil
that has only served on the Committee for four years has a significant record of
interventions (52) and ranks highly in comparison with other nations for the same
period. Yet, as underscored in the Norwegian report regarding China, some nations
employ a different system of lobbying such as ‘corridor diplomacy’ (Hoggart 2011,
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 433

86; Cassel and Pashkevich 2013) rather than formal debate during the Committee
sessions. Significantly, China has the largest state presence with an average of 29
official delegates per meeting, while South Africa and the Russian Federation have
an average of 20 per year. China had a 94% success rate for inscribing their
properties.11
Increasingly, successful nominations of State Parties are linked not just to the
support of one or two neighbours, but also to a wide array of countries spanning the
globe. Moreover, these interdependencies are no longer confined to a single group
of countries (e.g. the West or industrialised democracies), but to a diverse range of
economic regime types, religions and cultures (Hale and Held 2011, 30). One exam-
ple of this was with Palestine’s first site inscription in 2012, the Church of the Nativ-
ity, which was vocally supported primarily by Christian nations including Russia
and France, rather than strictly Middle Eastern delegations. Vocal support of Panama
was offered in 2013 by Qatar and South Africa; both countries have no obvious
regional or religious connections but have economic ties, and soon after trade agree-
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

ments with those nations were announced in Panama (see Meskell 2014). One
intriguing case is the nomination of Bolgar in the Russian Federation, whose fate
over the past decade or more offers a lens through which we acutely observe chang-
ing relations between the Advisory Bodies and the Committee, geopolitical pacting
and dwindling concern for conservation and the principles of the Convention.

Gridlocked heritage: the Bolgar historical–architectural complex

The Bolgar Historical and Architectural Complex12 is located in the Russian Federa-
tion Republic of Tatarstan. In 1999, its justification for World Heritage inscription
included its importance as an archaeological site; its relevance for mediaeval Islamic
architecture; as the first capital of the Golden Horde; and as a place of religion and
pilgrimage for Islam. In 2000, ICOMOS expressed concern over the planning on a
new industrial zone and the reconstruction of the collapsed Great Minaret. ICOMOS
evaluators stated that the reconstruction ‘would give an inaccurate impression of
Bolgar: at no time in history did the minaret and the church stand side by side as
functioning buildings’. The site was referred back to the State Party to clarify the
issues. However, ICOMOS noted that given a satisfactory response, the property
could be inscribed on the basis of criteria iii: unique testimony to the history and
culture of the Tatars and to the empires that they founded, in particular, the empire
of the Golden Horde.13
In June 2000, during the 24th session of the Bureau in Paris, the ICOMOS eval-
uation was upheld and the property was Referred: but ICOMOS also recognised that
the property fulfilled the requirements of Outstanding Universal Value.14 Some
months later, during the 24th World Heritage sessions, the Committee decided to
move for a Deferral indicating that the nomination required more substantial revision
than the term Referral implied.15 The dossier was re-submitted in 2001 and
addressed the concerns outright. Regarding the Great Minaret, Russia explained that
the reconstruction ‘was done in accordance with the ICOMOS Venice Charter with
account for materials and based on the original documents’ and that the reconstruc-
tion improved the visual perception of the complex. Russia denied that any
industrial project (a nuclear power plant) was planned nearby and that this was sim-
ply a misunderstanding. Hence, at its 25th Extraordinary Session, the Bureau
recommended the inscription of Bolgar on the basis of criterion iii.16
 434 L. Meskell et al.

However, during the 25th session of the Committee (2001), the Bureau recom-
mendation was questioned. Specifically, the Committee disputed Russia’s guarantees
over the authenticity of the reconstruction. They requested further historical evidence
of a nomadic empire and asked Russia to resubmit a revised nomination that might
refocus the justification for inscription.17 With the Committee’s decision, there fol-
lowed a hiatus of 10 years when the site’s name was subsequently changed from the
Bolgar Historical and Architectural Complex to Bolgar Historical and Archaeologi-
cal Complex. This change also reflected a new justification: Bolgar was now a
sacred place for all Russian Muslims, while the medieval architecture and
archaeological features were downplayed. The site was recast as an exceptional
testimony to the Bulgarian-Tatar civilisation during the tenth to fifteenth centuries
AD.18 This accords well with Russia’s continued Soviet-style understanding and
assimilation of ethnic minorities and President Putin’s own interest in archaeology
and origins (Shnirelman 2012). Language, culture and heritage have all been
deployed as soft power pawns to colonise, stabilise and integrate diverse separatist
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

communities into the Russian Federation, just as Stalin did in the Soviet era
(Shnirelman 1996).
In 2012, ICOMOS recommended that Bolgar not be inscribed since ‘significant
changes to the historic substance in both consolidation and reconstruction measures
as well as the construction of new developments had reduced the capacity of the site
to provide credible testimony to the historic periods it is affiliated with’.19 ICOMOS
explained that those changes over the past decade had adversely affected the site’s
authenticity. Moreover, plans to develop the site for religious tourism would further
compromise the Outstanding Universal Value.20 During the World Heritage
Committee meeting in St Petersburg, Russia flew delegates to the nearby city of
Kazan where it had hosted UNESCO’s Youth Day,21 attempting to secure
multilateral support for Bolgar’s nomination.
In 2013, Bolgar again became a political flashpoint during the 37th World Heri-
tage Committee sessions in Cambodia. For an entire week, ‘corridor diplomacy’ was
intense while Russian delegates lobbied with other national representatives, in par-
ticular with the Palestinians. Private meetings sought to arrive at a consensual solu-
tion to stave off the ICOMOS recommendation of non-inscription, ultimately
preventing any future proposals. But ICOMOS had neither the power nor intention
to change a recommendation taken by its World Heritage panel. Russia countered
that ICOMOS has made factual errors, and was misinformed about site preservation
and reconstruction, and the site boundaries.22 A working group chaired by Senegal
failed to achieve a unanimous solution, deciding instead to refer the dossier back to
the State Party until the 2014 Committee Session in Qatar.23 During that time,
Russia could take the necessary steps, with the support of ICOMOS, to consolidate
the requirements for inscription on the basis of criterion iii and vi,24 the association
with events or living traditions.
Reframing Bolgar as a Muslim pilgrimage site strategically ensured the support
of many Islamic nations on the World Heritage Committee. Arguing against the
ICOMOS recommendation, Iraq described the site as ‘cradle of Islam in Russia’ and
even considered it ‘complementary to the pilgrimage to Mecca’. Qatar stated that
the site’s value was a ‘symbol of peaceful coexistence’ and a ‘meeting place
between the North, South, East and West’. The UAE said that the site provided ‘tes-
timony of interfaith dialogue’. Bolgar’s religious dimension was further highlighted
by Algeria, while Malaysia underlined its ‘relevance for spirituality as a living
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 435

tradition’. In terms of the conservation, Estonia countered that accepting Bolgar’s

extensive reconstruction would be tantamount to the Committee rebelling against its
own principles instead of adhering to the highest conservation standards. Theirs was
a solitary voice.
At the time of writing, Bolgar has just been inscribed as the 1002nd site on the
World Heritage List at the Committee sessions in Doha, on 23 June 2014. While
ICOMOS reiterated its previous concerns over site authenticity and integrity, they
explained that their role during this advisory mission was to ‘facilitate’ the inscrip-
tion. They claimed ‘if criteria need(ed) to be found that could qualify authenticity’,
this could be justified on the basis of criteria ii and vi for Bolgar’s role as a site of
interchange between various cultures and its strong spiritual association as a site of
Islamic pilgrimage. The German delegate called for an explanation as to why senior
members of the World Heritage Center were present during the ICOMOS mission to
Bolgar, hinting at possible preferential treatment for the site. One member of the
Secretariat claimed his visit was not official but rather ‘a coincidence’. ICOMOS
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

responded more candidly that ‘since the inscription was to be facilitated’, its experts
were there in an ‘advisory role’ rather than in an evaluation capacity, so there was no
conflict of interest. In a surreal reversal of procedure, Bolgar becomes ‘a clear demon-
stration of respect for the Convention and its procedures’, according to some national
delegates and ‘example to emulate’ for ‘its persistence and hard work.’ Conflicts of
interest, political manoeuvring and undue pressure surround this site and it remains a
salient example of the current crisis in World Heritage – conservation has been
emptied out of the Convention and replaced by economic and political agendas.

Conclusions
Our analysis has focused upon the last step of the UNESCO World Heritage deci-
sion-making process, namely after the technical recommendations have been made.
Our findings reveal that there is now more divergence between those technical rec-
ommendations by the Advisory Bodies and the final decisions adopted by the World
Heritage Committee. However, this does not mean that political and economic influ-
ences were not salient in the past; they were simply less evident. One of the contri-
butions of our work is to better understand how the divergent positions of the
Advisory Bodies and the Committee have evolved. This, in turn, enables us to better
understand the political and economic interests at stake for nation states.
The history of decisions surrounding Bolgar exemplifies the gridlock that the
World Heritage arena increasingly faces. The authority of the Advisory Bodies has
been eroded and there is less concordance with Committee decisions. Consensual,
much less unanimous solutions are thus more difficult to achieve. States Parties are
exerting increasing influence over voting with more overt strategies of influence,
international pressure and soft power diplomacy (Luke and Kersel 2012). The sub-
stance of heritage and its protection matters less and less, even in conflict situations
(Meskell 2014), and can be manipulated for economic, political or religious advan-
tage by politicians and ambassadors. Delegations are now largely comprised of polit-
ical appointments rather than heritage experts. And the key international players
have changed, with smaller, once marginal nations securing seats on the Committee
and gaining greater influence so that multipolarity is de rigueur. The victors of the
post-war global arena are all but invisible, which might signal greater inclusion and
tolerance, but frequently serves the goals of emergent nations like the BRICS
 436 L. Meskell et al.

coaltion (Meskell 2013). The old divide of ‘the West and the Rest’ seems to fall
short of the complex machinations we witness today, built on an ever-shifting terrain
of regional, religious, social, economic and political alliances. Finally, in this grid-
locked system, decisions concerning the fate of World Heritage now mirror the very
lowest level of ambition rather than aspiring to the highest principles of conservation
or community involvement.
Since the end of the Second World War, the world community has sought to
establish and maintain institutions that govern its common affairs. The arena of glo-
bal heritage is no different. While such institutions take many forms, by far the most
important have been formal international agreements through which countries bind
themselves, under international law, to negotiated commitments. We suggest that the
competing political and economic interests we witness over issues as broad as cli-
mate change or nuclear proliferation are no different from those of the 1972 World
Heritage Convention for the nations of the world. Yet such institutions have their
roots in a much earlier age and are now locked in dysfunctional decision-making
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

procedures, while the proliferation of different organisations renders the institutional

architecture ever more fragmented (Hale, Held, and Young 2013, 3). Together, these
procedures have blocked global cooperation within intergovernmental organisations
like UNESCO.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our colleagues at the World Heritage Center, ICOMOS, ICCROM
and the IUCN as well as the many national delegations who have taken time to meet with us.
Kyle Lee-Crossett and Nick Brown at Stanford University undertook meticulous work on the
data coding for this paper. Gertjan Plets and Kristal Buckley provided valuable feedback on
the earlier drafts. We also thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful
suggestions on this paper.

Notes
1. UNESCO defines Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) as cultural and/or natural signifi-
cance that is so exceptional as to transcend national boundaries and to be of common
importance for present and future generations of all humanity. Statements of Outstand-
ing Universal Value are made up of several elements: a brief description of the property,
a Statement of Significance, a Statement of Authenticity, a Statement of Integrity and a
section describing how the World Heritage Site (WHS) is protected and managed.
2. ICCROM was set up in 1959 as an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the con-
servation of cultural heritage and is only involved in State of Conservation reporting in
a limited manner. ICOMOS was founded in 1965 and provides evaluations of cultural
properties, including cultural landscapes proposed for inscription on the World Heritage
List. The IUCN was established in 1948 and provides technical evaluations of natural
heritage properties and mixed properties and, through its worldwide network of special-
ists, reports on the State of Conservation of listed properties. Both ICOMOS and the
IUCN are international, non-governmental organisations.
3. WHC-10/34.COM/5A INF, 16. The IUCN is vastly better resourced: it is supported by
1200 member organisations including more than 200 government and 900 non-govern-
ment organisations and some 11,000 voluntary scientists. The IUCN’s work is supported
by over 1000 staff in 45 offices and hundreds of partners in public, NGO and private
sectors around the world.
4. Officially the term has been set at six years; however, there has been a voluntary self-
imposed limitation to four years. This decision was intended to give more countries the
chance to participate. In reality, an examination of Committee members over the years
reveals that a group of no more than 15–20 countries constantly rotates on and off of
the Committee (Meskell 2012).
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 437

5. See http://whc.unesco.org/en/list.
6. The List can no longer be critiqued solely for its prioritisation of European churches
and palaces. In 2013, newly inscribed sites included two Polish salt mines, Chinese rice
terraces, a Canadian whaling station and a Fijian port town. In 2012, it included the slag
heaps of Nord-Pas de Calais, the Cultural Landscape of Bali, mercury mines in Slovenia
and Spain and Bassari landscapes in Senegal.
7. Site referral occurs when some minor additional information is needed from a State
Party to supplement the original nomination. This can be provided in a short period of
time and does not need to be assessed by sending a new expert mission to the property.
Deferral entails additional information from, or actions needed by, the State Party that is
major. This would lead to a substantial revision of the nomination and thus a new or
substantially revised nomination dossier, and would need to be assessed by sending a
new mission to the property.
8. According to paragraph 151 of the Operational Guidelines for the implementation of the
World Heritage Convention (2013), ICOMOS and IUCN make their recommendations
under three categories. Properties can be: recommended for inscription (I); recom-
mended for referral (R); recommended for deferral (D); not recommended for inscription
(N). See http://whc.unesco.org/archive/opguide13-en.pdf.
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

9. http://www.hcindiaau.org/pdf/Sanya%20Declaration.pdf.
10. Those numbers indicates the times States Parties put forward nomination files for World
Heritage Listing in the period 2003–2013, regardless of Advisory Body recommenda-
tion or Committee Decision.
11. 17 nominations were proposed in the last 11 years, and 16 were inscribed.
12. http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/1110/.
13. WHC-2000/CONF.204/inf6e, 203–206. http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2000/whc-00-
conf204-inf6e.pdf.
14. WHC-2000/CONF.204/2, 48. http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2000/whc-00-conf204-2e.pdf.
15. CONF 204 X.C.3. http://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/2510.
16. WHC-01/CONF.208/4, 43, http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2001/whc-01-conf208-4e.pdf.
17. http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2001/whc-01-conf208-24e.pdf.
18. http://whc.unesco.org/en/nominations/1901/documents/.
19. According to the Operational Guidelines for the implementation of the World Heritage
Convention 2013, ‘If the Committee decides that a property should not be inscribed on the
World Heritage List, the nomination may not again be presented to the Committee except
in exceptional circumstances’. (para 158, 40). Thus if the Committee would have endorsed
ICOMOS recommendation, Bolgar could not have been proposed again for inscription.
However, it is important to note that there is a specific provision that limits this prohibition
in the case of ‘exceptional circumstances’. Those ‘include new discoveries, new scientific
information about the property, or different criteria not presented in the original nomination.
In these cases, a new nomination shall be submitted’ (para 158, 40). See Operational
Guidelines 2013, paragraph 158, 40. http://whc.unesco.org/archive/opguide13-en.pdf.
20. http://whc.unesco.org/archive/advisory_body_evaluation/deferred/981rev.pdf.
21. http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/888.
22. WHC-13/37.COM/INF.8B.4. http://whc.unesco.org/en/sessions/37COM/documents/.
23. There have only been two other cases in which the Committee overturned an ICOMOS
recommendation of Non Inscription to a Referral. Both cases occurred during the 36th
session of the Committee in 2012 in St. Petersburg, Russia. One was the nomination of
the Hill Forts of Rajasthan in India, later inscribed in 2013. The second one was the Rus-
sian Kremlins, which has not being brought back to the Committee at the time of writing.
24. Criterion (vi) requires that properties proposed for World Heritage Listing should ‘be
directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with
beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance’. Moreover,
it is also noted ‘The Committee considers that this criterion should preferably be used
in conjunction with other criteria’. See http://whc.unesco.org/en/criteria/. The applica-
tion and wording of criterion vi have been subject to numerous Committee discussions
related to its wording and application over the years. For a comprehensive examination
of the relevant issues see: whc.unesco.org/document/115937 and Labadi (2013). See 37
COM 8B.43 (http://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/5173).
 438 L. Meskell et al.

Notes on contributors
Lynn Meskell is a professor of anthropology and director of the Archaeology Center at
Stanford University. Before coming to Stanford in 2005, she was a professor of anthropology
at Columbia University. She is Honorary Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg. Some of her recent books and edited collections include Cosmopolitan
Archaeologies (2009, Duke UP) and The Nature of Culture: The New South Africa (2012,
Blackwells). Her new research focuses on the role of UNESCO in terms of heritage rights,
sovereignty and international politics.

Claudia Liuzza holds a Laurea cum Laude in Conservation of Cultural Heritage and a disser-
tation in Egyptology from the University of Pisa and she is currently pursuing her PhD in
anthropology at Stanford University. Her interests lay in the intersection between global phil-
anthropic and private sector involvements with conservation and development-based heritage
projects, with a specific focus on the UNESCO 1972 World Heritage Convention.

Enrico Bertacchini is an assistant professor at the Department of Economics and Statistics,

University of Torino. His main research is cultural economics with an interest in World
Heritage issues. Some of his recent publications on this topic are Toward a Political Economy
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

of World Heritage (J. of Cultural Economics, 2012, with D. Saccone) and Embracing
Diversity, Correcting Inequalities: Towards a new Global Governance for the UNESCO
World Heritage (Int, J. of Cultural Policy, 2011, with D. Saccone and W. Santagata).

Donatella Saccone is lecturer in Cultural Industries and Global Markets at the University of
Torino. She is member of the Scientific Committee of the Silvia Santagata Research Centre.
Her recent publications on cultural economics and cultural heritage include Development as a
Network: A New Perspective To Evaluate Cultural Projects, (Tafter Journal 2014), Toward
a Political Economy of World Heritage, (Journal of Cultural Economics, 2012, with
E. Bertacchini), and How Diverse Is The World Heritage List? (International Journal of
Public Policy, 2012, with W. Santagata).

References
Allais, L. 2013. “Integrities: The Salvage of Abu Simbel.” Grey Room 50: 6–45.
Askew, M. 2010. “The Magic List of Global Status: UNESCO, World Heritage and the
Agendas of States.” In Heritage and Globalisation, edited by S. Labadi and C. Long,
19–44. London: Routledge.
Bandarin, F. 2007. World Heritage: Challenges for the Millennium. Paris: UNESCO.
Bendix, R. 2013. “The Power of Perseverance: Exploring the Negotiation Dynamics at the
World Intellectual Property Organization.” In The Gloss of Harmony: The Politics of Pol-
icy-Making in Multilateral Organisations, edited by B. Müller, 23–45. London: Pluto
Press.
Bertacchini, E., and D. Saccone. 2012. “Toward a Political Economy of World Heritage.”
Journal of Cultural Economics 36 (4): 327–352.
Brumann, C. 2012. Multilateral Ethnography: Entering the World Heritage Arena. Working
Paper 136. Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.
Brumann, C. 2014. “Heritage Agnosticism: A Third Path for the Study of Cultural Heritage.”
Social Anthropology 22 (2): 173–188.
Cassel, S. H., and A. Pashkevich. 2013. “World Heritage and Tourism Innovation: Institu-
tional Frameworks and Local Adaptation.” European Planning Studies 1–16.
Choay, F. 2001. The Invention of the Historic Monument. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
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.
De Cesari, C. 2010. “World Heritage and Mosaic Universalism: A View from Palestine.”
Journal of Social Archaeology 10 (3): 299–324.
Di Giovine, M. A. 2008. The Heritage-Scape: UNESCO, World Heritage, and Tourism. New
York: Lexington Books.
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 439

Dreher, A., J.-E. Sturm, and J. R. Vreeland. 2009a. “Development Aid and International Poli-
tics: Does Membership on the UN Security Council Influence World Bank Decisions?”
Journal of Development Economics 88 (1): 1–18.
Dreher, A., J.-E. Sturm, and J. R. Vreeland. 2009b. “Global Horse Trading: IMF Loans for
Votes in the United Nations Security Council.” European Economic Review 53 (7):
742–757.
Dumper, M., and C. Larkin. 2012. “The Politics of Heritage and the Limitations of Interna-
tional Agency in Contested Cities: A Study of the Role of UNESCO in Jerusalem’s Old
City.” Review of International Studies 38 (1): 25–52.
The Economist. 2010. “UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites: A Danger List in Danger.” August
26. http://www.economist.com/node/16891951.
Ferdinand, P. 2012. “Rising Powers at the UN: An Analysis of the Voting Behaviour of
BRICSAM States in the General Assembly, 1974–2008.” Paper presented at in Rising
Powers and the Future of Global Governance Conference, University of Sussex,
Brighton, May 17.
Flues, F., A. Michaelowa, and K. Michaelowa. 2010. “What Determines UN Approval of
Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Projects in Developing Countries?” Public Choice
145 (1–2): 1–24.
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

Frey, B. S., P. Pamini, and L. Steiner. 2013. “Explaining the World Heritage List: An Empiri-
cal Study.” International Review of Economics 60 (1): 1–19.
Hale, T., and D. Held. 2011. “Editor’s Introduction.” In Handbook of Transnational Gover-
nance: Institutions and Innovations, edited by T. Hale and D. Held, 1–36. Cambridge:
Polity.
Hale, T., D. Held, and K. Young. 2013. Gridlock: Why Global Cooperation is Failing When
We Need It Most. Cambridge: Polity.
Hauser-Schäublin, B. 2011. “Preah Vihear. From Object of Colonial Desire to a Contested
World Heritage Site.” In World Heritage. Angkor and Beyond. Circumstances and Impli-
cations of UNESCO Listings in Cambodia. Göttingen Studies in Cultural Property, edited
by B. Hauser-Schäublin, Vol. 2, 33–56. Göttingen: Göttingen Studies in Cultural
Property.
Hoggart, R. 2011. An Idea and Its Servants: UNESCO from within. Piscataway, NJ:
Transaction.
ICOMOS. 2011. “Evaluations of Nominations of Cultural and Mixed Properties to the World
Heritage List.” ICOMOS Report for the World Heritage Committee, 35th Ordinary
Session UNESCO, June 2011. Paris: ICOMOS.
ICOMOS. 2012. The World Heritage Convention: Thinking Ahead: Ideas, Proposals and
Considerations from ICOMOS for Exploration September, 2012. Paris: ICOMOS.
IUCN. 2012. A Future for World Heritage: Challenges and Responses to Assure the Credibil-
ity of the World Heritage Convention International Union for Conservation of Nature
(IUCN). September 2012. Working Paper.
Jokilehto, J. 2011. “World Heritage: Observations on Decisions Related to Cultural Heritage.”
Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development 1 (1): 61–74.
Jokilehto, J., and C. Cameron. 2008. The World Heritage List: What is OUV?: Defining the
Outstanding Universal Value of Cultural World Heritage Properties. Berlin: Bässler
Verlag.
Kersel, M. M., and C. Luke. 2012. “A Crack in the Diplomatic Armor: The United States
and the Palestinian Authority’s Bid for UNESCO Recognition.” Journal of Field Archae-
ology 37 (2): 143–144.
Labadi, S. 2013. UNESCO, Cultural Heritage and Outstanding Universal Value. Walnut
Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
Lafrenz Samuels, K. 2009. “Trajectories of Development: International Heritage Management
of Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa.” Archaeologies 5 (1): 68–91.
Logan, W. 2012. “Cultural Diversity, Cultural Heritage and Human Rights: Towards Heritage
Management as Human Rights-Based Cultural Practice.” International Journal of Heri-
tage Studies 18: 231–244.
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 (2): 153–176.
 440 L. Meskell et al.

Luke, C., and M. M. Kersel. 2012. Soft Power, Hard Heritage: U.S. Cultural Diplomacy and
Archaeology. London: Routledge.
Meskell, L. M. 2011. “From Paris to Pontdrift: UNESCO Meetings.” Mapungubwe and Min-
ing South African Archaeological Bulletin 66 (194): 149–156.
Meskell, L. M. 2012. “The Rush to Inscribe: Reflections on the 35th Session of the World Her-
itage Committee, UNESCO Paris, 2011.” Journal of Field Archaeology 37 (2): 145–151.
Meskell, L. M. 2013a. “UNESCO and the Fate of the World Heritage Indigenous Peoples
Council of Experts (WHIPCOE).” International Journal of Cultural Property 20 (2):
155–174.
Meskell, L. M. 2013b. “UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention at 40: Challenging the Eco-
nomic and Political Order of International Heritage Conservation.” Current Anthropology
54 (4): 483–494.
Meskell, L. M. 2014. “States of Conservation: Protection, Politics and Pacting within
UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee.” Anthropological Quarterly 87 (1): 267–292.
Müller, B. 2013. “Lifting the Veil of Harmony: Anthropologists Approach International
Organizations.” In The Gloss of Harmony: The Politics of Policy-making in Multilateral
Organisations, edited by B. Müller, 1–20. London: Pluto Press.
Rao, K. 2010. “A New Paradigm for the Identification, Nomination and Inscription of Prop-
Downloaded by [171.67.216.22] at 11:19 05 April 2015

erties on the World Heritage List.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 16 (3):
161–172.
Report by the Norwegian Delegation. 2010. Report to the UNESCO World Heritage Commit-
tee 34th Session, Brasilia, July 25–August 3.
Reyes, V. 2014. “The Production of Cultural and Natural Wealth: An Examination of World
Heritage Sites.” Poetics 44: 42–63.
Rico, T. 2008. “Negative Heritage: The Place of Conflict in World Heritage.” Conservation
and Management of Archaeological Sites 10: 344–352.
Salazar, N. B. 2010. “The Glocalisation of Heritage through Tourism.” In Heritage and Glob-
alisation, edited by S. Labadi and C. Long, 131–145. London: Routledge.
Schmitt, T. M. 2012. Cultural Governance: Zur Kulturgeographie Des UNESCO-Welterbere-
gimes. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Shnirelman, V. 1996. Who Gets the past: Competition for Ancestors among Non-Russian
Intellectuals in Russia. New York: Woodrow Wilson International Center.
Shnirelman, V. 2012. “Archaeology and the National Idea in Eurasia.” In The Archaeology of
Power and Politics in Eurasia, edited by C. Hartley, G. Bike Yazicioglu, and A. T.
Smith, 15–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Slaughter, A.-M. 2004. “Disaggregated Sovereignty: Towards the Public Accountability of
Global Government Networks.” Government and Opposition 39 (2): 159–190.
Slaughter, A.-M., and T. Hale. 2010. “Transgovernmental Networks.” In The Handbook of
Governance, 342–351. London: Sage.
Titchen, S. M. 1996. “On the Construction of ‘Outstanding Universal Value’: Some
Comments on the Implementation of the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention.”
Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 1: 235–242.
Turtinen, J. 2000. Globalising Heritage: On UNESCO and the Transnational Construction of
a World Heritage. Stockholm: Stockholm Center for Organizational Research Stockholm.
UNESCO. 1972. “Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural
Heritage.” Adopted by the General Conference at its seventeenth session Paris, November
16. http://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext.
UNESCO, 2011a. Evaluation of the Global Strategy and the PACT Initiative (WHC-11/
35.COM/9A), May 27, 2011, Paris: UNESCO.
UNESCO, 2011b. Independent External Evaluation of UNESCO, Doc. 36 C/28 (35 C/Reso-
lution 102, 185 EX/Decision 18, 186 EX/Decision 17). Paris: UNESCO.
Weiss, T. G. 2012. What’s Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix It. Cambridge:
Polity.
Williams, T. 2011. “The Curious Tale of Preah Vihear: The Process and Value of World Heri-
tage Nomination.” Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 13 (1): 1–7.
Wright, S. 1998. “The Politicization of ‘Culture’.” Anthropology Today 14 (1): 7–15.

View publication stats