UNESCO World Heritage listing process
Philosophy
World Heritage listing in general has evolved from single monuments to include routes, like the Silk Roads of the Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor, and culturally linked categories, like the Qanats of Iran and the Béguinages of Belgium. The Australian Convict Sites listing is an example of this, and has given Australia experience in multi-site and multi-state listings. But Australia’s procedures have not been updated to deal with multi-site and multi-state listings, and in consequence they are a hindrance rather than a help in the nomination process.
National List
The normal procedure in Australia is for the relevant items to be listed at state level, then submitted for the National List. This is not as simple as it ought to be. First of all the state all have their own procedures and criteria for listing, and they are generally not geared for items of the sort proposed here, and in particular fragmentary or disassembled structures.
The National list itself is ridiculously small In 2003 the Register of the National Estate (managed by the Australian Heritage Commission, which included all buildings that had a National Trust listing, was subsumed into the Commonwealth EPBC Act. All properties had to be assessed to see if they would fit into either of two new heritage lists - the Australian National Heritage List and the Commonwealth Heritage List.
At that time there were 13,000 heritage places on the Register of the National Estate. In 2007 the Register was closed and archived. Any properties that had not been assessed under the EPBC Act by that time simply had their heritage status lapse. They were still on the Register, the Register could still be accessed through the National Heritage Database, but it became non-statutory. In 2012 all references to the Register of the National Estate were removed from legislation Australia-wide and any statutory protection of places on the Register was gone.
As an example, on of the properties coveredythe poresednt proposal is the Quaker Meeting House Adelaide, The Meeting House listing on the Register is here Australian Heritage Database (environment.gov.au)
The Meeting House, along with many other heritage places Australia-wide, fell into the "lapsed" category. This was the result of there being so many properties to assess that the Commonwealth agency responsible was unable to get through all of them. Twice during the "grace period" we attempted to get the Meeting House onto the "Priority Assessment List" which was the list of forward work for the agency. Both times we were unable to even get the property listed for assessment. Each time a considerable effort was spent - the first time I did the paperwork, and the second time Bert Stock did. So there things have rested. We are still a 'National Trust' listed-building but that organisation no longer nominates buildings for heritage status, although it still owns or manages 300 or so heritage-listed properties and advocates for at-risk heritage places.
The two new lists contain very small numbers of places. The National Heritage list includes 102 sites, and these include built (European and indigenous) sites, as well as natural sites like the West Kimberly and Shark Bay, and geological sites like the ediacaran fossil sites. The Commonwealth Heritage list contains 388 places.
World Heritage Tentative List
The nominated site must be on the Australian Tentative List for at least one year before the World Heritage nomination is submitted. If the Australian Heritage Commission considers that there is a case, it may recommend that the Commonwealth Government add the place(s) to Australia’s Tentative List, and may in due course put forward a formal UNESCO World Heritage nomination. Getting the nomination onto the Tentative List involves coordinating the Commonwealth Government, state government(s), land managers (such as parks), and property owners, all of which is likely to take at least a year.
Some general guidance can be obtained from the Australian Heritage Council documents:
Australian Heritage Council, Guidelines for the Assessment of Places the National Heritage List (2009)
Australian Government, Department of Agriculture Water and Resources, Managing World Heritage in Australia: an online framework guide to best practice World Heritage management.
In relation to this specific proposal, the Hon Sussan Ley, Minister for the Environment, wrote to the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) on 4 June 2020 (inter alia):
The Australian World Heritage Intergovernmental Agreement (2009), agreed to by all jurisdictions, outlines the role and responsibilities of Australian state and territory governments in relation to the nomination and management of Word Heritage places, State and territory governments are responsible for the first stage of the nomination process, which involves submitting places to the Australian Government for potential inclusion on Australia’s World Heritage Tentative List. Submissions are considered against the requirements of the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, as published by the World Heritage Committee. Sites are also required to be included on Australia’s National Heritage List before they will be considered for potential inclusion on Australia’s Tentative List.
The procedure described does not work;
A. For a nomination involving properties in more than one state.
A different procedure was presumably followed in developing the Australian Convict Sites nomination, and the same must be done in this case. Although it is not normal procedure, there is nothing in the Agreement to prevent the Commonwealth initiating a nomination by referring it to the relevant states and territories for a reaction.
B. For a nomination involving properties which, though they may meet UNESCO criteria, may not meet Australian ones.
In the AHC Guidelines p 102, the Portable Houses, South Melbourne, are cited as an example of a place falling below the National Heritage criterion (c) for their historic heritage significance.’ This is because ‘The evidence did not support the claim that the houses contributed at a national level to a greater understanding of the migrant experience in Australia in the early 1850s’. Now this may merely reflect the fact that the nomination was defective, but it is important to consider that most countries have a history of immigration and/or emigration, and those experiences are in no way distinctive at a world level. But the role of such buildings is very distinctive in terms of the development of international trade and of construction technology. And the fact that Australian examples almost uniquely survive elevates them even higher.
C. For a nomination process involving fragmentary and stored items.
In the nature of things many prefabricated buildings have been moved during their lifetime, a significant number have been dismantled and stored; and only fragments survive of others. All these form part of the present proposal. To omit them would be similar to excluding from a consideration of the Silk Road a critical deposit of Turkish potsherds found in eastern China. But in some jurisdictions it may be necessary to list such items under different legislation designed for portable cultural property.
We therefore call upon the Commonwealth to prescribe a procedure by which the present nomination proposal can be advanced. .If it is accepted that this proposal is a worthy one, with a good chance of success at UNESCO, and if it is accepted that its success is very much in Australia’s interests (neither of which is really in question) the role of the Australian Heritage Council should be to facilitate it. If that requires changes to the existing procedures, which were originally designed for single sites, falling within single states those changes should be made. Specifically:
The Australian Heritage Council (or other Commonwealth agency) should consider the proposal on a prima facie basis.
When satisfied on this basis, it should refer the proposal to the states (the term is here used to include the Northern Territory) for their reactions.
It should ask the states to consider for state listing all of the proposed buildings which are not already covered.
It should ask the states to take into consideration in each case the contribution of the building to the national and international significance of the nomination list as a whole.
It should ask the states to assess under any other appropriate legislation such items here listed as may not be considered appropriate for listing in the usual way.
It should be prepared to incorporate in a World Heritage nomination structures and items which will make a significant contribution, even where they may not be state listed.
It should cooperate with the states in assembling all the necessary data for a World Heritage nomination.
It should sponsor a major publication dealing with the world history of prefabrication and Australia’s part in it.
The submission to UNESCO will require the list provided here to be developed in accordance with the requirements below. How management plans and other measures will apply to a multiple site listing is not entirely clear, but some indication will be obtained from other listings incorporating a number of separate public and private properties, such as that for the Decorated Farmhouses of Hälsingland, Sweden. The essentials will be planning and/or heritage protection for all items, and firm plans for the restoration and interpretation of the major ones.
World Heritage nomination process
[from UNESCO World Heritage Centre - World Heritage List Nominations]
1 Tentative List
The first step a country must take is to make an ‘inventory’ of its important natural and cultural heritage sites located within its boundaries. This ‘inventory’ is known as the Tentative List, and provides a forecast of the properties that a State Party may decide to submit for inscription in the next five to ten years and which may be updated at any time. It is an important step since the World Heritage Committee cannot consider a nomination for inscription on the World Heritage List unless the property has already been included on the State Party’s Tentative List.
2 The Nomination File
By preparing a Tentative List and selecting sites from it, a State Party can plan when to present a nomination file. The World Heritage Centre offers advice and assistance to the State Party in preparing this file, which needs to be as exhaustive as possible, making sure the necessary documentation and maps are included. The nomination is submitted to the World Heritage Centre for review and to check it is complete.
3 The Advisory Bodies
A nominated property is independently evaluated by two Advisory Bodies mandated by the World Heritage Convention: the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which respectively provide the World Heritage Committee with evaluations of the cultural and natural sites nominated. The third Advisory Body is the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), an intergovernmental organization which provides the Committee with expert advice on conservation of cultural sites, as well as on training activities.
4 The World Heritage Committee
Once a site has been nominated and evaluated it is up to the intergovernmental World Heritage Committee to make the final decision on its inscription. Once a year, the Committee meets to decide which sites will be inscribed on the World Heritage List. It can also defer its decision and request further information from the States Parties.
5 The Criteria for Selection
To be include on the Word Heritage List sites must be of outstanding universal value and meet at least one out of ten selection criteria. These criteria are explained in the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention which, besides the text of the Convention, is the main working tool of World Heritage. The criteria are regularly revised by the Committee to reflect the evolution of the World Heritage concept itself.
Until the end of 2004 World Heritage sites were selected on the basis of six cultural and four national criteria. With the adoption of the revised Operational Guidelines, only one set of ten criteria exists.
The criteria for selection
[from UNESCO World Heritage Centre - The Criteria for Selection]
To be included in the World Heritage List, sites must be of outstanding universal value, and must meet at least one out of ten selection criteria.
These criteria are explained in the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention which, besides the text of the Convention, is the main working tool of World Heritage. The criteria are regularly revised by the Committee to reflect the evolution of the World Heritage concept itself.
Until the end of 2004 World Heritage sites were selected on the basis of six cultural and four national criteria. With the adoption of the Revised Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, only one set of ten criteria exists..
Selection criteria
(i) to represent a masterpiece of human creative genius;
(ii) to exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time, or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning, or landscape design;
(iii) to bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared;
(iv) to be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history;
(v) to be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change;
(vi) to be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance. (The Committee considers that this criterion should preferably be used in conjunction with other criteria);
(vii) to contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance;
(viii) to be outstanding examples representing major stages of earth’s history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features;
(ix) to be outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals;
(x) to contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.
Nomination Format
The required format for a nomination is described in the document ‘Format for the Nomination of Properties for Inscription on the World Heritage List’, available for downloading from the World Heritage Site. Some features of it are:
· The name and location of the property
· Geographical coordinates
· Description of the boundaries
· Map showing the property and if applicable the buffer zone
· Details of the official local institution
· Description of the property
· History and development
· Justification for the inscription
· Synthesis
· Statement of integrity
· Statement of authenticity
· Protection and management proposals
· Comparative analysis
· Proposed statement of outstanding universal value
· Present state of conservation
· Development pressures
· Environmental pressures
· Natural disasters and risk preparedness
· Visitation provisions
· Number of inhabitants within the property and buffer zone
· Ownership
· Protective designation
· Means of implementing protection
· Existing planning provisions
· Management plan
· Sources of finance
· Sources of expertise
· Visitor facilities
· Presentation and promotion
· Staffing
· Monitoring
. Photographs and audio-visual material multi-site and multi-state listings