The adoption of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was the culminating point of UNESCO’s lengthy quest for the function and values of cultural expressions and practices, and of monuments and sites. Since Bolivia first raised the issue in 1973, many experts have reflected on the matter, meetings were organized and programmes and projects conceived and executed. The experience gained through these efforts greatly influenced the draft text of the new international convention, which was elaborated between 2001 and 2003.
An important intermediate step was the 1989 UNESCO Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore. The Recommendation, being soft law, did not have a wide impact, yet it inspired a number of Member States to take legislative or administrative measures and to draw up inventories of elements of their intangible cultural heritage.
In 1994, the Living Human Treasures programme was launched with the aim of encouraging the creation of national systems that give official recognition to qualified tradition bearers and practitioners and that encourage them to transmit their knowledge and skills linked to specific elements of the intangible cultural heritage to the younger generations.
In 1997/1998 UNESCO approved the programme of the Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, thus creating an international distinction, which, through a List system, tried to share, celebrate and safeguard selected elements of the ICH. The Masterpieces programme originally was inspired by the List of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (the World Heritage Convention), but has gradually developed in the direction of the 2003 Convention.
At the end of the 1990s experts concluded, after a long series of regional meetings, that a more binding legal instrument was needed in the field of safeguarding intangible heritage. They also found that the 1989 Recommendation may have placed too much emphasis on documentation and researchers, and not enough on the protection of living practices and traditions, or on the groups and communities who are the bearers of these practices and traditions.
In 2001, the 31st session of the General Conference decided to work towards a new international normative instrument, "preferably a convention".
The draft text of the Convention was sent to the Executive Board of UNESCO in September 2003 and the Board recommended the General Conference to adopt the text as a UNESCO Convention. The final text was officially adopted at the 32nd session of the General Conference on 17 October 2003. The Convention entered into force on 20 April 2006, three months after the deposit at UNESCO of the thirtieth instrument of ratification.