محمدرضا محمودی قوژدی

The convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage, or the World Heritage Convention (1972), is now considered the most remarkable international tool to protect and identify the shared heritage of humans. Inscription of a site on the World Heritage List is a function of regulations that are specified by the 1972 World Heritage Convention and its operational guidelines. According to the convention, the member states selected sites within their geographical expanse as nominees to enter the world heritage list according to the regulations of the convention. In the years that followed the formation of the convention, the increasing influence of politics made many countries see the world heritage list as a tool to achieve their political, economic, and cultural goals. Thus, the selection of the sites is now a function of multiple factors that make the process of inscription complicated and, in some cases, costly. The present study aimed to answer the following question: “What factors influence the selection of site processes for inscriptions on the world heritage list?” The goal was to identify the explicit and implicit factors so that more successful and cost-effective decisions could be taken from a domestic policy perspective. As a result, the influential components were identified and explained by a descriptive-analytical investigation of the texts related to the convents and a select group of 10 countries with distinguished performance in the process using content analysis, and their relationships were interpreted. Investigations showed that the factors that influenced the process were placed in three layers: the central layer was the requirements of the convention, the middle layer was the constraints of inscription, and the prioritized themes, and the external layer was the factors that influenced the method of selection adopted by countries that included items ranging from their governmental structure to their macro-scale policies in the international arena (among others).

The formal advisory bodies of the World Heritage Committee (ICOMOS and IUCN) evaluate all the nominations of properties for inscription on the World Heritage List. These evaluations help the World Heritage Committee to decide which properties to inscribe on the world heritage list. However, it is the World Heritage Committee that makes the final decision, which can be contrary to the recommendations of the advisory bodies. Therefore, there may be many properties on the list that have not necessarily been approved by the advisory bodies. The review and technical evaluations carried out by the advisory bodies can reveal deficiencies in the nomination dossiers, which may be overshadowed by the committee’s decisions. Nevertheless, understanding the approach of these bodies and their evaluation methods can be taken into consideration in the preparation of nomination files and avoid heavy costs in the process. The following research offers a review of the Iranian cultural and natural property nominations for inscription on the World Heritage List and analyzes the issues and deficiencies of these nomination files through the lens of the advisory bodies. To carry out this research, all the evaluation reports of the advisory bodies regarding Iran’s World Heritage nomination dossiers have been analyzed using qualitative content analysis. This study found that the main focus ofICOMOS lies on the “justification” section, while IUCN mostly concentrates on “justification” and “management” sections. The review also shows that the main challenges in the evaluation stage are due to a lack of mutual understanding between the nominating State Party and the advisory bodies. In general, the advisory bodies consider the most important issues in Iran’s WH nomination dossiers to be the information provided in the sections of justification (Outstanding Universal Values), conservation, and comparative analysis.

One of the most important international tools for conserving, identifying, and managing humanity's shared heritage is the World Heritage Convention of 1972. This convention is the outcome of years of international efforts to safeguard humanity's shared heritage. Several factors have influenced the processes of the convention over time. These factors aid in understanding the primary purpose of the convention and, eventually, the proper direction for its policies. The present paper presents a descriptive-historical study of the events surrounding the development of the World Heritage Convention through three periods (early twentieth century until World War I, World War I to World War II, and post-World War II until the adoption of the World Heritage Convention in 1972) to identify and explain the factors that influenced it. The findings reveal that conserving humanity's shared heritage has been the basis of all efforts since the convention's adoption. Identification of heritage properties has been at the center of these efforts and has followed three factors: threats, heritage definition, and the link between cultural and natural heritage. According to historical studies, the conservation of this shared heritage is based on three components: each country’s internal conservation structures (including laws and institutions), international conservation bodies, and international financial assistance.

The World Heritage Convention was set up in 1972 and was welcomed by many countries, becoming an international instrument for identifying, preserving, and managing common heritage of mankind. However, after a few years, significant gaps in the World Heritage List emerged due to imbalances in geographical distribution or specific subjects. For instance, Europe, historic cities and religious buildings, and Christianity compared to other parts of the world, other relics, and other religions, respectively, had far many inscriptions. Furthermore, there were far too many historical periods in comparison to the prehistoric period and the twentieth century, and “Elitist” architecture was inscription far too often in comparison to indigenous architecture; in general, traditional and alive cultures were given very few places on the list. Therefore, the World Heritage Committee launched a plan known as the Global Strategy in order to identify and bridge the gaps in the List in an attempt to create a representative, balanced, and credible World Heritage List. In this regard, ICOMOS and IUCN reviewed the World Heritage List using specific methods to identify the gaps. ICOMOS used typological, chronological-regional, and thematic frameworks to analyze the World Heritage List and the Tentative List until 2004. The typological analysis analyzed the properties based on form and structure, just as the World Heritage Committee has done since the World Heritage List was established. ICOMOS classified the world into various regions and identified historical periods in each region using a chronological-regional framework. The relationship between man and his surrounding environment was highlighted in the thematic framework, and his response to his surroundings was analyzed in the formation of tangible properties in historical periods. As a result, after ICOMOS and IUCN presented their reports on the gaps in the World Heritage List to the World Heritage Committee, the Committee imposed a restriction on annual inscription by countries, and countries were asked to identify the gaps in their World Heritage List using the evaluation methods introduced by ICOMOS and IUCN, and propose new nominations with the goal of filling the gaps in the overall list as well as each country's list. Using the ICOMOS's method and focusing on cultural heritage, this study reviewed the World Heritage List and tentative list of Iran to identifying the gaps in the lists. In doing so, all Iranian inscriptions on the World Heritage List as well as Iran's tentative list, were reviewed, and all ICOMOS's classifications were applied based on the information in the case of these works. The analysis in the typological framework was carried out for Iran and the world through analytical comparison of the status of each category in order to make a comparison between Iran's status and the current situation in the world, using the most recent information published by the Committee. The results showed that the World Heritage List of Iran has significant gaps in categories such as natural heritage, transnational and transboundary properties, geographical distribution, and special types of heritage such as industrial heritage, 20th-century heritage, or subjects such as utilizing natural resources, movement of peoples, and developing technologies.