UNESCO adopts Budapest world heritage declaration

IFACCA/Artshub,
09 July 2002, France

UNESCO has announced that its World Heritage Committee, at a meeting in late June, adopted the so-called Budapest Declaration, which marked the 30th anniversary of the 1972 World Heritage Convention and recognised its need to apply to a great diversity of 'heritage'. The declaration encourages nations that have not yet joined the convention to do so, and urges all interested parties to ‘strengthen the credibility of the World Heritage List, as a representative and geographically balanced testimony of cultural and natural properties of outstanding universal value.’ Chaired by Tomas Fejerdy (Hungary), the meeting added nine new sites to the World Heritage List, and two to the List of World Heritage in Danger, including the first-ever site in Afghanistan. The committee also adopted a decision concerning the protection of cultural heritage in the Palestinian Territories, which would establish an inventory and assess its current state of conservation. UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura commented to the meeting that it is the international community's responsibility to ‘ensure that the World Heritage List is credible’, particularly following the destruction of Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Buddhas. He encouraged the committee to make more use of the mechanisms provided in its convention to better protect endangered sites, and stressed the need for UNESCO to work in concert with a wider range of partners to mobilise the means required to protect heritage more efficiently.