ABSTRACT
Although assumed to be a depoliticised process, the nomination of places to the World Heritage List is deeply politicised at both the global and the local level. While UNESCO’s rhetoric is that the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (the World Heritage Convention) seeks to protect the heritage of humanity, a global heritage, it is clear from the events that surrounded the inscription of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome) that this heritage is not always uncontested nor is it benign. Differing State Party ideologies and memories can result in global heritage assuming multivalent meanings. In the previous chapter, Askew suggests that UNESCO’s World Heritage List has global influence and is
an arbiter of cultural status and inclusion … [it] obscures the forms of suppression and manipulation of symbols by its member states which pursue their own ideological agendas by appropriating globally endowed status.
