ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the world heritage and the shared responsibility notions, but it highlights the values and significance of cultural heritage, particularly the concept of outstanding universal value (OUV). It discusses the challenges and the controversies associated with the assessment of values in general, and the outstanding universal value in particular. The following discussion traces these debates and reveals that the first stab at defining the outstanding universal value happened only in 1998, and that the term was finally defined in 2005 33 years after its inception in 1972. Through a content analysis of UNESCO's documents and archives, it reveals how the attempts to elucidate and to operationalize the outstanding universal value had lagged behind the contemporaneous heritage debates. The discussion also reveals that the world heritage documents and doctrinal texts had lagged behind the heritage debates in defining values and significance and in establishing their assessment tools.
