World Heritage

World Cultural and Natural Heritage 

With 192 States Parties the UNESCO 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage is the most widely ratified convention on the protection of both cultural and natural heritage.

This Convention has far-reaching policy and legal effects, including on access to and use of natural resources, land and energy. Such effects generate policy matters in national law-making and at times legal disputes, including between States and national or foreign investors    

Each State Party may seek the inscription on the World Heritage List of cultural (monuments, groups of buildings and sites) and natural heritage (natural features, geological and physiographical formations, natural sites) which is situated on its territory and is of an outstanding value

Professor Carducci can assist governments, public and private entities, by resolving disputes (as arbitrator or mediator) or providing expert advice and legal opinions or party’s representation (as legal counsel) with regard to the numerous policy and legal issues that the implementation of this Convention raises worldwide (as it is nearly universally ratified). Primarily the following issues:

For States Parties, as to the preparation and presentation of nominations, implementation and compliance with the Convention, special requests, assistance, World Heritage in Danger, deletion of properties from the World Heritage List

Duties to protect for the territorial States Parties and duties of the international community as a whole to cooperate

Such duties can be far-reaching and impact also on the obligations of a state as to the cultural and natural resources on its territory with regard to nationals, other states or foreign investors in international economic and investment law

As to his publications specifically on the World Heritage Convention, see 

i) G.Carducci, National and International Protection of the Cultural and Natural Heritage;

ii) G.Carducci, The 1972 World Heritage Convention in the Framework of other UNESCO Conventions on Cultural Heritage

Published in: A Commentary of the 1972 World Heritage Convention, Oxford University Press p.103-146, p.363-376, 2008

« Cultural Heritage » means:

monuments: architectural works, works of monumental sculpture and painting, elements or structures of an archaeological nature, inscriptions, cave dwellings and combinations of features, which are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science;

groups of buildings: groups of separate or connected buildings which, because of their architecture, their homogeneity or their place in the landscape, are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science;

sites: works of man or the combined works of nature and man, and areas including archaeological sites which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological point of view.

« Natural Heritage » means:

natural features consisting of physical and biological formations or groups of such formations, which are of outstanding universal value from the aesthetic or scientific point of view;

geological and physiographical formations and precisely delineated areas which constitute the habitat of threatened species of animals and plants of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation;

natural sites or precisely delineated natural areas of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty.