Proceedings of the World Heritage Committee, Dec. 12-17

Peter Stott (pstott@PEG.APC.ORG)
Thu, 8 Dec 1994 23:50:04 +1000

Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage," is the primary
instrument in international law protecting natural and cultural sites of
"universal" significance. Signed in 1972, the Convention has been ratified
by 138 countries, and 411 sites have been placed on the list of properties
meriting the world's protection and management. The Convention's
Secretariat, the World Heritage Centre, is established within the structure
of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO), headquartered in Paris.

Each year at this time, the World Heritage Committee meets to make
additions to the World Heritage List, based on nominations by Parties to
the Convention of sites in their territories that meet the Convention's
rigorous criteria. Two NGOs are assigned the task of reviewing properties
for their eligibility: IUCN-The World Conservation Union; and the
International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). The Committee also
reviews the reports made by IUCN and ICOMOS on conditions at existing World
Heritage sites, and allocates monies from the World Heritage Fund for
threatened World Heritage properties.

This year, the eighteenth annual session of the Committee is being
hosted by the Government of Thailand in Phuket, an island on the Andaman
Sea on Thailand's southwest coast.

Beginning with the opening session of the Committee on Monday,
December 12, reports from each day's proceedings will be posted to several
different electronic media including the ICOMOS gopher (gopher://hpb.hwc.ca:
7000/11/.icomos/wh/") mailing lists ARCH-L and ANTHRO-L; newsgroups
sci.archaeology and sci.anthropology; and Gen.landmarks, a conference on
many of the networks of the Association for Progressive Communication,
including Pegasus, EcoNet (IGC), GreenNet, Web, AlterNex, and Wamani.

==========================================================================
W o r l d H e r i t a g e C o m m i t t e e
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
------ XVIII Annual Session, Phuket, Thailand, December 12-17, 1994 ------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This distribution is made possible through grants from the Samuel H. Kress
Foundation; the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training;
the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy; and Tufts University's School of
Arts and Sciences. It has been organized with the support of the Inter-
national Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and its Canadian and U.S.
national committees, ICOMOS Canada and US/ICOMOS. It has had the technical
support of the Pegasus Networks (Australia) and the Institute for Global
Communications (U.S.).
The reports are those of an observer of the meetings and do not represent
official publications of ICOMOS, the World Heritage Centre, or any dele-
gation.
Inquiries to the editor, Peter Stott
<pstott@peg.apc.org> or fax to (66-76) 340-479 between December 12 and 17
==========================================================================