Reading #3 The concept of outstanding universal value in the World Heritage Convention

• the term outstanding universal value is first used in the Preamble to the 1972 Convention and it is repeated in each of the definitions in Articles 1 and 2 respectively

Countries

• Quito, Ecuador
• Aachen Cathedral, Germany
• L'Anse aux Meadows, Canada
• Mesa Verde, USA
• the rockhewn churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia
• The Ile de Goree, Senegal
• the historic centre of Cracow and the Wieliczka salt-mine, Poland

Archaeological sites

• L'Anse aux Meadows
• Mesa Verde

religious sites

• Lalibela, Ethiopia
• Aachen, Germany

industrial monument

• Wieliczka

symbolic monument for the slave trade

• Ile de Goree

Property types

• monuments
• groups of buildings
• sites 

Universality

• the problem of interpreting 'universality' becomes more acute when considering
• 1. cultural landscapes
• 2. vernacular or domestic architecture
• 3. industrial heritage  

Continuing landscape

• one which retains an active social role in contemporary society closely associated with the traditional way of life and in which the evolutionary process is still in progress
• there is no traditional way of life that may be deemed to be universal in the modern world

 Vernacular architecture

• highly regionalized
• wood in Scandinavia and Japan
• mud-brick in the Arabian peninsula and the Americas
• mud-brick of Taos Pueblo in New Mexico

Industrial monuments

• confusing for traditionalists
• 19-20th century ironworks of Volklingerhute, Germany, a stark collection of industrial plant in an unappealing industrial landscapes 

Outstanding value

• must be sought within clearly defined geocultural areas rather than across the globe
• the concept of outstanding universal value as enshrined in the World Heritage Convention is a noble one, but one that is too vague to serve as a criterion for inscription on the World Heritage List

Western oriented values

• operates in accordance with an aesthetic and historical perspective that is grounded in European culture, even though transported to the Americas
• half the inscribed sites are historic towns and Christian monuments-skewed towards a European aesthetic and concept of culture
• curiously, neither of the Romanesque buildings was considered to merit inscription as 'a masterpiece of human creative genius' under the first of the six criteria for inscription on the List, indicating a conscious or unconscious bias in favor of Gothic architecture). 

Evaluation

• each cultural property should be evaluated relatively, that is, it should be compared with that of other property of the same type dating from the same period, both inside and outside the State Party's borders
• delegations to the World Heritage Committee, for a comprehensive series of thematic studies carried out by experts in different fields to identify the most important properties in the major fields of human achievement (the so-called 'Global Study') was abandoned in favour of the more ambitious but less specific Global Strategy 
• the problem is essentially one of the degree of selectivity to be applied 

 Implementation

• For this objective to be achieved, both the Global Strategy and the earlier Global Study should be implemented without delay and consideration should be given to some form of moratorium on nominations within categories that have not yet been the subject of comparative studies

 
 
other labels:
monuments, groups of buildings, sites, symbolic monument, industrial monument, religious site, archaeological site,