UNESCO’s “Benign Organism”: The ‘World Heritage Regime’ and Its International Influence

State aspirations to have national properties recognised as belonging to the heritage of humanity with an international significance has increasingly empowered the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in regard to its influence upon international behaviour. In the early 1970s, UNESCO embarked on an ambitious mission to protect and preserve humanity’s most outstanding heritage to guarantee that it will be passed to future generations. It also aimed to recognise people’s interaction with nature and to ensure a balance between them. Towards this end, UNESCO launched a global World Heritage regime to accomplish its noble mandate. Over the past thirty-nine years this regime has become an international success as it has enabled the safeguarding of numerous tangible and intangible goods of exceptional value for the entirety of humanity. The key to its success has been a balanced combination of measures that highlight the regime’s direct and indirect forms of power. Yet, with a growing number of sites inscribed on the World Heritage List and with growing threats to them, the World Heritage system has found itself increasingly facing difficulties in maintaining its “moral power”. These challenges have been exacerbated by a lack of coercive force and sanctioning methods in realistic terms, as well as by rising flows of tourism and, at the same time, decreasing international assistance and funds. The ongoing success of the regime thus come to depend, more than ever, upon the shared involvement and commitment of the States Parties, the international community, and the civil society.

This thesis proposes to examine the multiple ways in which the World Heritage regime has used its power mechanisms to achieve its current significant international position. It will begin with a definition of the UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention, an international treaty to preserve the world cultural and natural and intangible heritage. UNESCO’ s World Heritage regime is thus chiefly based on the implementation of the World Heritage Convention and the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention through the World Heritage Committee (WHC). A brief diachronic view of the Convention’s work and aims are therefore imperative for understanding the regime’s power mechanisms and its dynamics. Also provided will be definitions of cultural and natural heritage as well as cultural landscapes and the adopted criteria for the nomination of world heritage, which are all key aspects and assessment measures of UNESCO’ s Heritage regime. After a brief synopsis of the differences between this regime and conventional International Organisations (IOs), this research will shed light on the nature of its persuasive forms of power: scientific objectivity, blacklisting, mimicry, and competition - especially regarding the significance of both the States Parties and the regime’s reputation, as well as its legitimacy. It will discuss how vital these forms of power are to success in influencing states to ratify the World Heritage Convention, to ensure compliance, and persuade them to jointly achieve the proposed goals. It will be further shown that the regime’s legitimacy is based on the perception of its procedures and favourable outcomes by its Member States. In addition, this research will theorise on the constructivist IR approach by adapting it to the regime. How Member States follow constructed rules and adopt a ‘logic of appropriateness’ will also be explored. It will in addition involve examination of its political tools, the World Heritage List, the List of World Heritage in Danger and socio-cultural tools, since they represent the conduit for its power mechanisms, and argue the chances of success in each arena. Examples from the Cologne Cathedral in Germany and the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal illustrate how the regime’s tools can be used as a deterrent mechanism to ensure the integrity of World Heritage sites. Moreover, the dichotomy of heritage viewed through the lens of national and international interests will be addressed, as well as what this entails for the States Parties’ sovereignty. International interests may come to the forefront of heritage protection, creating a new form of sovereignty: ‘Disaggregated sovereignty’. The World Heritage regime’s various benefits will also be discussed, its impact on the state’s economies especially in regard to tourism, the granting of international assistance as well as funds, and its influence on the States Parties social life by igniting a sense of prestige and pride about their World Heritage properties and by sensitising entire nations regarding the necessity to jointly protect and conserve this collective treasure. Examples from Cambodia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo illustrate the effectiveness of international assistance provided by the regime, while the example of the Galapagos Islands’ underlines the need to develop sustainable tourism practices to prevent the deterioration of heritage sites. ...