INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE OF HUMANITY
Documents ITH/12/7.COM/11+Add.3 ITH/12/7.COM/INF.7 Rev.
36 nominations Decision 7.COM 11
443. The Chairperson then turned to item 11 of the agenda and document 11+Add . 3.
He recalled that it was clear that the Committee in Bali could not examine the 214 nominations submitted in the present cycle (or submitted but not yet examined in previous cycles), and had therefore set a ceiling limit of 62 files. In this way, each submitting State would have the possibility to have one nomination of its choice examined, with priority awarded to multinational files. The result was that 38 nominations to the Representative List were identified as priorities for the 2012 cycle. The Subsidiary Body evaluated 36 of those files of which two were not completed on time and three were subsequently withdrawn by the submitting State, leaving 33 nominations to examine.
Drawing upon the recommendations of the Subsidiary Body, the Committee’s task was to decide whether each nomination satisfied all five of the criteria for inscription. The Chairperson invited the Chairperson of the Subsidiary Body, Mr Victor Rago (Venezuela) to the podium together with the Rapporteur, Mr Tvrtko Zebec (Croatia). The Chairperson took the opportunity to remind the Committee of the inscription criteria, which were read aloud.
The Chairperson also sought to examine all 33 nomination files in the course of the day and asked that Committee members submit any recommendations they may have ahead of the discussions in an effort to save time.
444. The Rapporteur of the Subsidiary Body began with a general overview of the 2012 nomination cycle including the Subsidiary Body’s working methods and general observations. The Rapporteur recalled that in Bali in 2011, a Subsidiary Body was established for the evaluation of nominations to the Representative List, composed of Spain, Croatia, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Islamic Republic of Iran, Burkina Faso and Morocco. Mr Victor Rago (Venezuela) was elected as Chairperson, and Mr Ahmed Skounti (Morocco) would serve as Vice-Chair. Mr Tvrtko Zebec (Croatia) was elected Rapporteur. It was recalled that a total of 38 files were to be evaluated by the Subsidiary Body, but one State was unable to complete its file for the 2012 cycle, while a multinational nomination was similarly withdrawn.
445. With regard to the working methods, the Rapporteur remarked that they were similar to those for the Consultative Body with the Secretariat establishing a password-protected, dedicated website through which members could consult the nomination files, as well as the Secretariat’s requests for additional information. In the case of referred files from a prvious cycle, the decisions adopted by the previous Committee were also made available. Members could enter their evaluation reports directly through the website, while the Secretariat drew up summaries for each nomination and drafted recommendations to reflect the opinions. Of the 36 nominations, there were divergent opinions for all but two files submitted by India and the Republic of Korea. In the Subsidiary Body’s second meeting in September, in which each nomination was evaluated collectively, the resulting recommendations and draft decisions represented for the most part unanimous consensus.
In two cases, full consensus on all criteria could not be achieved, and the Committee was presented with options for consideration. Members who were nationals of a nominating State Party did not evaluate the nominations nor had access to the reports of the other members, and left the meeting room during the evaluations.
446. With regard to general observations, the Rapporteur recalled that the Subsidiary Body evaluated 36 files, including five referred files, of which four were multinational files, including two new nominations, one extended multinational nomination, and one referred
multinational nomination. The Subsidiary Body was impressed with the diversity of intangible cultural heritage nominated, and was gratified to see a broader and more inclusive geographic representation among the 2012 files than in past cycles, with several States submitting nominations for the first time, including Austria, Niger and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The Subsidiary Body was also pleased to note that some submitting States emphasized the important contribution of intangible cultural heritage to such larger processes as conflict resolution, peace-building and environmental sustainability. It also appreciated and welcomed the submission of several complex elements representing multiple domains, which were said to expand awareness worldwide of the diversity of intangible cultural heritage and its various forms of expressions. The Rapporteur reiterated that recommendations not to inscribe an element in no way constituted a judgement on the merits of the element, but referred only to the adequacy of the information presented in the nomination file. It was therefore important that submitting States provide a complete and convincing presentation of the element. The Subsidiary Body observed a general improvement in the quality of many nominations, thanks to the detailed requests for additional information by the Secretariat. Conversely, it regretted that it could not favourably recommend a large number of nominations, since they did not convincingly demonstrate that the criteria were satisfied.
447. The Rapporteur outlined the recurrent shortcomings, which were attributed to the following: i) poor linguistic quality, presenting a substantial obstacle to comprehension, particularly as the clarity of the available nomination files would affect its public visibility;
ii) the duplication of text from another nomination was considered unacceptable, even if it emanated from the same State or responsible body (with the notable exception of the criterion 5 on the inventory, which might be similar from one file to another); iii) the use of inappropriate vocabulary, such as references to ‘authenticity’, ‘masterpieces’, ‘original’,
‘unique’, ‘exceptional’, ‘correct’, ‘ancient’, ‘the world heritage of humanity’, ‘labelization’,
‘branding’, and so on (other concepts such as ‘national symbol’, ‘cultural resistance’ could also be confusing to outside readers and States were requested to refrain from such usage); and iv) information that was presented in the nomination form but not in its proper place. In this cycle, the Subsidiary Body had decided to consider the nomination in its entirety, but many readers encountering the nomination online might be puzzled as to how it reached its conclusion when the information was not found in the right place. For this reason, it now recommends that the Committee decide that incorrectly placed information should not be taken into consideration.
448. The Rapporteur noted that this was the first year in which the ICH-02 nomination form was used, which offered certain advantages to many States, but might also have introduced challenges for others. For instance, the introduction of sub-sections within each criterion helped some States to organize their information and present it systematically, but it may also have contributed to a tendency among other States towards a fragmentation of the desired information as well as difficulty in providing information in its proper place.
Similarly, the check-boxes introduced in several sections may have created as many opportunities for confusion or contradiction. In some cases, information asserted in the check-boxes were not well explained or justified in the corresponding narratives. The Rapporteur also drew attention to the technical problem of exceeding the word limits in the ICH-02 form. The 2012 Subsidiary Body had agreed to evaluate the nominations exceeding the limits, but in several cases the allowance was tripled, creating inequality among States respecting the limits. It therefore recommended that such nominations should not be evaluated or examined, though multinational nominations would be allowed higher word limits. It also suggested increasing the word limit in the French nomination by 15% to account for the different character of the language. Conversely, the Subsidiary Body also found that some States had used only a quarter or third of the permitted word count, suggesting that the Secretariat revise form ICH-02 to set out a minimum limit. It also suggested that a 10% margin be allowed between the upper and lower limits. Another technical problem concerned the optional videos submitted by all States Parties in which several films were lacking valuable information content because they were poorly edited or
were not accessible in English or French. The Subsidiary Body recognized the importance of these videos in the evaluation of files and for the part they play in contributing towards public understanding of the element once inscribed. The Subsidiary Body therefore suggested that the videos be subtitled in one or other of the working languages. Moreover, it was suggested that the videos be made obligatory, since all nomination files to the Representative List were accompanied by videos. As in previous cycles, the Subsidiary Body again found that submitting States often had a tendency to make assertions in the nominations rather than providing evidence to support their claims. Although the veracity of statements was assumed, the Subsidiary Body still wished to see those statements supported by detail and substance. This topic is particularly related to the question of documentary evidence submitted with regard to criterion R.4 and R.5. Despite the lower number of files submitted for examination, the Rapporteur remarked on the pressure to timely conclude all 36 files during a five-day meeting. The Subsidiary Body regretted that in two cases it was unable to reach a consensus on all criteria, but nevertheless had worked diligently to give full attention to each nomination.
449. With regard to the criteria for inscription, the Rapporteur remarked that of the 18 nominations that did not receive a favourable recommendation, six were unsuccessful owing to a single criterion, most often criterion R.1 or R.5. In 2012, 12 of the 18 files that fell short did so on two or more criteria. Notably, as in the three previous cycles, criterion R.2 was never the sole criterion not satisfied, but was instead often a contributing factor. With regard to criterion R.1, the criterion most often not satisfied (in ten cases during this cycle), the Subsidiary Body encountered many of the same shortcomings that had pointed been out in its three previous reports: information was often too general, too historical or too technical, and lacked a clear description of the significance of an element to its community and of its current social and cultural functions. As in previous cycles, nominations of handicrafts tended to focus on the objects produced rather than on traditional craftsmanship and the processes and know-how of the craftspeople. The Subsidiary Body also noted that submitting States tended to describe the threats and vulnerability of the element, when it might appear that the nomination file would be better suited to inscription on the Urgent Safeguarding List. It therefore encouraged States to utilize the mechanism best adapted to the situation of a given element, as well as the needs and aspirations of its community.
Several nominations evaluated also raised important questions on transmission in which a formal transmission system appeared to have supplanted a prior system of non-formal transmission, raising concern among some members about the real viability of the element.
Others felt that the formalization or even the institutionalization of transmission was often part of the evolution and recreation of intangible cultural heritage, and formal and institutional transmission was therefore a positive factor, even if accompanied by the disappearance of non-formal modes of transmission. Several nominations drew attention to the tangible heritage associated with the proposed element as well as natural spaces, with some nominations pointed to existing or proposed legal protection and community-based management systems for the built heritage, public spaces, urban neighbourhoods and natural settings within which particular elements of intangible cultural heritage were practiced. The Subsidiary Body encouraged the Committee and States Parties to explore possibilities for strengthening interaction between the 2003 Convention and the 1972 Convention. However, it noted a recurrent tendency among submitting States to give insufficient attention to section 1(v) of the ICH-02 form9, taking it for granted that the nature of the element itself rendered such a question moot, even though every nomination had to demonstrate compliance with that definition.
450. With regard to criterion R.2, the Rapporteur noted the occasional use of inappropriate vocabulary that did not encourage dialogue and the respect of cultural diversity. Additionally, certain nominations spoke only of how inscription would bring greater visibility to the element in question and not to intangible cultural heritage in general. The
9 . Identification and definition of the element. Section 1(v): ‘Is there any part of the element that is not compatible with existing international human rights instruments or with the requirement of mutual respect among communities, groups and individuals, or with sustainable development?’
Subsidiary Body sought to be convinced that the submitting State had given thought to the contribution inscription made to the larger purposes of the Representative List, and not simply to the element’s own popularity or renown. The Committee might therefore wish to include in its decision a more explicit reminder in this regard. With regard to criterion R.3, the Rapporteur remarked that it was the second most difficult criterion for submitting States, where it was not satisfied in nine nominations, and in one nomination where it was the sole disqualifying factor. Safeguarding measures were said to be overly general or sometimes hypothetical. Even if nominations to the Representative List did not require a detailed safeguarding calendar and budget, compared to the Urgent Safeguarding List, safeguarding measures should be expressed in terms of concrete commitments by the submitting States and communities, rather than as possibilities and potentialities, i.e.
safeguarding measures were described in conditional terms: ‘could’ or ‘might’, or spoken as possible or desirable, rather than in definite terms of what ‘will’ happen. Since this point had previously been raised without notable impact, the Subsidiary Body advised adopting a decision to address this point. The Rapporteur also underlined the fact that the safeguarding measures often failed to give adequate attention to protecting the element from the possible unintended consequences of inscription, encouraging States to anticipate potential risks and to elaborate protective measures so that the positive benefits of inscription would not be diminished by harmful side effects, particularly with regard to over-commercialization. Nonetheless, the most convincing safeguarding measures were those that resulted from the widest possible participation of the communities in the nomination process. The Subsidiary Body was gratified to note that community participation in criterion R.4 seemed to be less problematic than it had been in previous cycles. However, there were continued difficulties in clearly identifying which communities, groups or individuals were concerned by a given nomination. In one particular case, the submitting State failed to justify the selection of one community over another with similar expressions.
451. The Rapporteur raised another issue relating to the free, prior and informed consent of community representatives, groups and associations, as it was often unclear who those people or groups were, and how they related to the larger communities identified in other parts of the nomination. The Subsidiary Body was very pleased with the many different forms of consent, including children’s drawings, handwritten letters, a scroll accompanied by a video, petitions signed by thousands of people, and sometimes eloquent testimonials. As with its predecessors, it preferred individualized expressions of consent to standardized letters or petitions, and recognized that different national contexts made it impossible to expect States to adopt identical methods. Nevertheless, a strict standard should be adopted in that nominations should contain evidence of free, prior and informed consent in one of the working languages of the Committee (English or French), as well as the language of the community concerned, since consent forms could not be understood and evaluated by the Subsidiary Body (nor the general public) when submitted in other languages.
452. With regard to criterion R.4, the Rapporteur reiterated the necessity that communities participate throughout the nomination process. It occasionally appeared that communities were only implicated at the final stages, and were asked to provide their consent to safeguarding measures or documents in which they had not been involved, raising doubts on the feasibility of the safeguarding measures proposed in criterion R.3.
With regard to criterion R.4, particularly under section 4.c10, the form requested a clear explanation should no such practices exist, but some submitting States chose to provide minimal information. As with section 1(v) referring to human rights, the Subsidiary Body suggested that it should not be asked to evaluate nominations where the State had not responded to every section. It also met with cases where the information provided in this section was contradicted by information found elsewhere in the nomination. With regard to criterion R.5, the Subsidiary Body was gratified to note that there were fewer problems than
10 . Respect for customary practices governing access to the element. Section 4.c: ‘[…] demonstrate that inscription of the element and implementation of the safeguarding measures would fully respect [any] customary practices governing access to specific aspects of such heritage’.
in the previous cycle, but was nevertheless an eliminating factor in two nominations and a contributing factor in five others. A clear explanation was required in the nomination describing the circumstances under which the inventories were elaborated that demonstrated their conformity with Art. 11 and Art. 12 of the Convention, and addressing in particular the participation of communities and relevant NGOs, as well as the updating procedure. In the two cases where criterion R.5 was the sole eliminating criterion, the Subsidiary Body was unable to find information concerning the nature of the inventory and the circumstances under which it was established. In the other cases where R.5 was one of several criteria that had not been met, the description was perhaps more complete but still incomplete in important aspects. The Rapporteur invited the Committee to take note of the progress made since 2009, described in detail in document 11.
453. The Rapporteur explained that despite systematic requests by the Secretariat, the desired documentation in several nominations was sparse or missing, i.e. website addresses that were inactive; URL addresses to ministries without specific hyperlinks to information on inventorying; links to an inventory where information on the element in question could not easily be located by someone not speaking the national language.
Documents provided as annexes to the nomination often suffered from weaknesses, i.e.
they referred to the inventory in general but not to the element, or were simply attestations that the element had been included without providing any evidence. On a positive note, there were no cases of R.5 not being satisfied in 2012 as a result of a lack of documentary evidence. However, to ensure that this continued to be the case, the Subsidiary Body asked the Secretariat to clarify the instructions in the nomination form to more fully explain the kind of documentary evidence expected, which would be implemented in forms prepared for the 31 March 2013 deadline and thus applicable to nominations in 2014. The Subsidiary Body thus recommended that nominations with no documentary evidence for R.5 in 2013 should not be examined. However, it suggested not imposing the same language requirement as for the consent. Although this admittedly reduced the accessibility of the evidence, the Subsidiary Body recognized inventories as voluminous works that could not
they referred to the inventory in general but not to the element, or were simply attestations that the element had been included without providing any evidence. On a positive note, there were no cases of R.5 not being satisfied in 2012 as a result of a lack of documentary evidence. However, to ensure that this continued to be the case, the Subsidiary Body asked the Secretariat to clarify the instructions in the nomination form to more fully explain the kind of documentary evidence expected, which would be implemented in forms prepared for the 31 March 2013 deadline and thus applicable to nominations in 2014. The Subsidiary Body thus recommended that nominations with no documentary evidence for R.5 in 2013 should not be examined. However, it suggested not imposing the same language requirement as for the consent. Although this admittedly reduced the accessibility of the evidence, the Subsidiary Body recognized inventories as voluminous works that could not