The Potential Influences of the Global Strategy on the Conventional Legislative and Regulatory Measures

Nominating heritage properties for listing as World Heritage Sites has become more challenging with the advent of the Operational Guidelines of 2005 that have construed the prerequisites of the Global Strategy. According to the Guidelines of 2005, States Parties, to the World Heritage Convention, are urged to nominate properties for listing as World Heritage Sites that fall under particular under-represented heritage categories and are requested to verify the availability of the legislative and regulatory measures that guarantee the protection of these properties. The main aim of this paper was to evaluate the influences of the Global Strategy on the conventional legislative and regulatory measures that were used before the adoption of the Global Strategy to support nominations for listing properties as World Heritage Sites. The empirical study approached this issue by selecting a non-probability purposive sample of eight British World Heritage Sites that represent the pre-Global Strategy and the post-Global Strategy World Heritage Sites. Developing and analyzing a database of the data provided by the management plans of the selected case studies was the research tool that was adopted to conduct the empirical study. The most significant finding of this study unveiled the very limited influences of the Global Strategy on the conventional legislative and regulatory measures that were used earlier to support nominations of heritage properties for listing as World Heritage Sites. The study suggests replacing the inefficient non-statutory mechanisms that are used to provide protection for the heritage properties in the adopted case studies by further developed statutory ones.