World Heritage Convention

The World Heritage Convention, formally the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, is an international treaty signed on 23 November 1972, which created the World Heritage Sites, with the primary goals of nature conservation and the preservation and security of cultural properties. The convention, a signed document of international agreement, guides the work of the World Heritage Committee. It was developed over a seven-year period (1965–1972).
The convention defines which sites can be considered for inscription on the World Heritage Sites list, sets out the duties of each country's governments to identify potential sites and to protect and preserve them. Signatory countries pledge to conserve their World Heritage Sites, report regularly on the state of their conservation and if needed, to restore the sites. The convention also sets out how the World Heritage Fund is to be used and managed.
It was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972, and signed by the President of General Conference of UNESCO, Toru Haguiwara, and the Director-General of UNESCO, René Maheu, on 23 November 1972. It is held in the archives of UNESCO.
The International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, begun after appeals by Egypt and the Sudan in 1959, led to the relocation of 22 monuments. The success of the project, in particular the creation of a coalition of 50 countries behind the project, led UNESCO, together with the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), to prepare a draft convention on the protection of cultural heritage.
A White House conference in 1965 called for a "World Heritage Trust" to preserve "the world's superb natural and scenic areas and historic sites for the present and the future of the entire world citizenry". The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, which were presented in 1972 to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. Under the World Heritage Committee, signatory countries are required to produce and submit periodic data reporting providing the committee with an overview of each participating nation's implementation of the World Heritage Convention and a 'snapshot' of current conditions at World Heritage properties.
Based on the draft convention that UNESCO had initiated, a single text was eventually agreed upon by all parties, and the "Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage" was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972. The convention came into force on 17 December 1975, three months after the 20th ratification.
The convention began to be implemented in 1977, after the 40th ratification, and the first names were inscribed to the list in 1978. New names have been added to the list every year since then, at the annual sessions of the World Heritage Committee.
The convention contains 38 articles. The key articles are set out below:
As of August 2024, the convention has been ratified by 196 states: 192 UN member states, two UN observer states (the Holy See (Vatican City) and Palestine), and two states in free association with New Zealand (the Cook Islands and Niue). Only one UN member state has not ratified the convention: Liechtenstein.