Implementing the World Heritage Convention

Dimensions of Compliance

Evan Hamman, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology School of Law, Australia and Herdis Hølleland, Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, Norway

As the World Heritage Convention enters its 50th year, questions are being raised about its failures and successes. This topical book draws together perspectives across law and heritage research to examine the Convention and its implementation through the novel lens of compliance.

‘This work involves a high level of technicality in law and policy and scientific data analysis, highlighting the dynamic between scientific reports and decision-making in heritage policies.’
– Anaïs Matiez, Asian Journal of International Law

‘How we conserve our natural and cultural heritage, and with what effect on people and the natural environment, depends largely on how science-based regimes play out. Implementing the World Heritage Convention: Dimensions of Compliance is a major contribution to the critical debate on science-based governance of World Heritage. Hamman and Hølleland have systematically examined UNESCO’s digital archive to illuminate compliance and non-compliance across 12 high-profile cases, including the Everglades, the Great Barrier Reef, East Rennell, Old Town of Lijiang, Dresden and George Town. By synthesising perspectives from transnational environmental law and archaeology, the book breaks new ground in the vitally important project of global heritage conservation.’
——蒂芙尼·h·莫里森,澳大利亚Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

‘A half-century after the adoption of the World Heritage Convention, much research and public comment focuses on the ways in which the World Heritage system is bent to political purposes and vested interests. But what if we take its ambitious regulatory apparatus seriously? Positing compliance as a key notion, heritage studies specialist Hølleland and law scholar Hamman deliver a meticulously researched analysis of how the rules and procedures around awarding, monitoring and removing World Heritage honours have been conceptualised and implemented over the years. For anyone interested in a realistic appraisal of the possibilities and limitations of the most prominent global framework for heritage conservation, this is an invaluable resource.’
– Christoph Brumann, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany