Conclusion

After my eight years as director-general of UNESCO, from 2009 to 2017, I still have many questions. Some are a result of the sad period of the rise of violent extremism and the deliberate destruction of emblematic heritage sites. Others stem from new threats to heritage, such as climate change. Do we have enough legal instruments and norms to prevent and mitigate such acts in the future? Can we create a UN peacekeeping force for the protection of heritage? What about the establishment of safe havens for looted antiquities in time of conflict? What are the lessons of including heritage protection in UN peacekeeping operations, as was the case with Mali? Are we doing enough to make heritage protection a tool for peace and reconciliation, particularly in multicultural societies?

Soon the world will be celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage, and the competition for inscription of new sites is running high. Without any doubt, the concept of world heritage is a huge success of the multilateral system: the convention is the most widely ratified international legal instrument since the creation of the United Nations, with 193 states parties and more than 1,100 heritage sites.

Nevertheless, future progress requires answers to more questions: Are we keeping high the integrity of the convention and its criteria, while adapting them to the new challenges? Do we put enough emphasis on the conservation efforts for, and the safeguarding of, the sites already inscribed? Are we cognizant of and serious enough about the threats to our world heritage, such as urbanization, unsustainable tourism, lack of resources, lack of human capacity, natural disasters, and, the biggest of all, climate change? Are governments aware that the desired green, inclusive, just, and sustainable future is not possible without heritage protection and that heritage holds the key to many of the answers? Are we involving enough civil society and local communities in the protection and preservation of heritage? Are we educating enough young people about why heritage matters? Some of these still remain unanswered.

One thing is certain, however. The concept of the world’s cultural and natural heritage is still one of the most unifying, visionary, and transformative ideas of the twentieth century. It is the idea that monuments, sites, temples, historic cities, and landscapes that embrace all the diversity of humanity may represent “outstanding universal value” and should be protected, cherished, and shared by all. It is the idea that humanity stands united in all its diversity around shared values, that all cultures are different but that difference does not divide—it unites.

The diverse legal, institutional, and cultural measures enumerated above require further development and to be augmented by new initiatives by international and local actors—political, private, and civil society—if the importance of cultural heritage and its central but underappreciated relationship with peace are to be made effective in the decades to come.