ABSTRACT
It is difficult to imagine contemporary heritage protection without the numerous international heritage conventions that have proliferated over the course of the twentieth century. Although these instruments are governed by the rules of international law, they are reliant upon the actions of individual states in order to ensure their implementation at the domestic level. It is precisely this process of translation to the domestic legal sphere which remains invisible within many discussions surrounding international heritage law. Yet these modes of translation can facilitate – or, conversely, silence – opportunities for actors other than the state to shape cultural heritage law. As such, they can play a critical role in many of the current debates surrounding heritage governance. It is thus important that those working and living in, with or around heritage are aware of the legal techniques through which international heritage standards find their expression in domestic law. In order to elucidate these techniques, this chapter will touch upon a range of core legal concepts related to the implementation of international law in domestic legal settings, such as the distinctions between common and civil law and monist and dualist legal systems. While the focus of the chapter is on the international treaties adopted within the scope of UNESCO, it will also discuss how so-called ‘soft law’ heritage standards can play a role in domestic legal settings despite their formally non-binding nature. This chapter argues that the apparent universality of rules relating to the protection of cultural heritage at an international level belies the diversity of methods through which they are implemented at the national level, the actors involved in this process, and the interaction of international standards with existing domestic legal traditions aimed at the protection of cultural heritage. Moreover, given that many of the norms established by international heritage conventions do not have a ‘self-executing’ character, they remain beyond the reach of domestic legal actors. In many cases it is thus more illuminating to interrogate precisely which elements of cultural heritage law are commonly not translated into domestic law and why.
