Decision 3 COM XI.34

Amendments to the criteria for the inclusion of cultural and natural properties in the World Heritage List and Guidelines for the evaluation of Nominations to the World Heritage List by ICOMOS and IUCN

On the general question of the number of inscriptions to be entered on the World Heritage List, as well as of the selection criteria to be applied, the Committee recalled that the Convention foresees in Article 11 paragraph 1 that each State Party "shall in so far as possible submit to the World Heritage Committee _an inventory of property forming part of the cultural and natural heritage_, situated in its territory and _suitable for inclusion_" in the World Heritage List (passages not underlined in the text of the Convention). The Committee recommends that States Parties in future conform to this provision so that the Committee may have access to provisional and non-exhaustive lists of cultural properties for which they intend to submit nomination files. This "inventory" and the nominations should be very restricted, it being understood however that no limit in the number of nominations should be imposed and that assurance be given to each State Party that it may submit nominations for cultural property relating to all the civilizations which have succeeded each other or which coexist in its territory. The Committee was of the opinion that the inventories submitted by the States Parties - inventories which would as it were constitute long-term plans over a period of 5 to 10 years should enable the Committee to have a better global idea of the form that the World Heritage List would take and thus to better define the selection criteria.