ABSTRACT

The UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICHC) was adopted without dissenting vote by the General Conference at its 32nd session in October 2003 and entered into force on 20th April 2006. By September 2008, more than 100 states were parties to it. The early adoption of this Convention, and its swift entry into force, was without precedent. Since November 2006, the Intergovernmental Committee had been preparing operational directives for the implementation of the Convention that were approved by the General Assembly of the States Parties in June 2008. The first inscriptions on the two lists created by the ICHC, the ‘List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in need of urgent safeguarding’ (henceforth Urgent List) and the ‘Representative List of the ICH of Humanity’ (henceforth Representative List), will take place towards the end of 2009. Prior to this Convention, UNESCO had carried out a number of activities

to promote the safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) worldwide. Among them, the landmark undertakings were the Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore 1989 (henceforth 1989 Recommendation), the dissemination of the Living Human Treasure system launched in 1993, and the Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity established in 1998. Throughout these activities, the concept of ICH developed in response to political, economic, social and cultural environments. This chapter traces the development of the concept of ICH during the preparation of the ICHC. Since 1993, I was responsible for the programme of ICH in UNESCO Headquarters, and was directly involved in the assessment regarding the application of the 1989 Recommendation by the member states and the development of the Proclamation of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity (henceforth, Proclamation of Masterpieces) and the ICHC. First, the chapter examines how, and in what context, the Proclamation of the Masterpieces programme

was launched. It identifies the speed with which the ‘cultural debates’ of the Marrakech meeting (1997) were transformed into political debates within UNESCO. Second, it describes how criticisms of the 1989 Recommendation triggered the creation of the ICHC. Third, it details the progressive development of the conceptual framework for the ICHC through a review of the debates held during three expert meetings: Turin (2001), Elche (2001) and Rio (2002). Each of these marked a significant stage for the elaboration of the definition and scope of the ICHC. I also describe how consensus emerged among different views and approaches, notably within the Turin meeting, which established the underpinning concepts of the Convention. The progressive and delicate transformation process from academic to political debates during these meetings, as well as subsequent meetings held in UNESCO, is also described. Moreover, I attempt to demonstrate how the Proclamation of Masterpieces programme and the process of the preparation of ICHC were interwoven in the course of their parallel development, notably through the Elche and Rio meetings, as well as UNESCO Executive Board sessions. This demonstrates how the Proclamation of the Masterpieces programme served as a lever for the creation of the ICHC. The concluding section reviews the difficult discussions that took place between 2006 and 2008 by the Intergovernmental Committee of the ICHC over the development of the operational directives. The key issue was how to identify appropriate mechanisms to ensure the participation of practitioner communities, an issue championed as one of the most significant principles throughout the conferences and meetings examined in this chapter.