The World Heritage Convention and the Law of State ResponsibilityPromises and Pitfalls

Under many UNESCO instruments there is a disconnect between the language of the treaties and the mechanics of the positive law, on the one hand, and the actuality of international heritage management practice, on the other. Specifically, existing primary norms often do not set sufficiently clear legal obligations. This chapter explores this mismatch with a focus on (concurrent) State responsibility in the context of the World Heritage program. It focuses specifically on two different levels of State involvement in heritage protection: (1) multinational heritage nominations and (2) heritage that is listed by only one State, but that is also of interest to another State. The 1972 World Heritage Convention places heritage squarely within the territorial State’s sovereignty, even if it does recognize that States have a duty to cooperate in the protection of world heritage in other States as well. The duty of cooperation is seen as eroding State sovereignty, but critics also highlight that in fact there is too much sovereign control over those allegedly sovereignty-eroding dimensions of World Heritage processes.