Decision of the World Heritage Committee 30 COM 9

The World Heritage Committee,

1. Having examined Document WHC-06/30.COM/9,

2. Takes note with satisfaction of the outcomes reflected in the papers presented by IUCN and ICOMOS contained in Document WHC-06/30.COM/9;

3. Conscious that outstanding universal value is a concept that shall embrace all cultures, regions and peoples, and does not ignore differing cultural interpretations of outstanding universal value because they originate from minorities, indigenous groups and/or local peoples;

4. Recognises that the identification of outstanding universal value on the basis of the established criteria needs to be analysed also in their cultural and natural context, and that in some instances, the tangible and intangible interpretations cannot be separated;

5. Emphasises the importance of international assistance for countries which have no properties or are under-represented on the World Heritage List, as a primary means to help lead to a greater representation of outstanding universal value;

6. Requests the World Heritage Centre in close cooperation with the Advisory Bodies to undertake a careful review of past Committee decisions, and create two compendiums of relevant material and decisions, compiled into the form of guidance manuals, from which precedents on how to interpret and apply discussions of outstanding universal value, in terms of nominations to both the World Heritage List, and the List of World Heritage in Danger, can be clearly shown;

7. The first compendium shall cover outstanding universal value and the inscription of proposed properties by criteria onto the World Heritage List and shall be presented to the Committee at its 31st session in 2007; the second compendium shall cover outstanding universal value with regard to debates about seeking to inscribe, or remove, properties from the World Heritage List in Danger and shall be presented to the Committee at its 32 session in 2008. Both compendiums shall cover:

a) Successful case studies under the relevant criteria;

b) As far as possible, elaborate under each criterion, what was the ‘threshold' for successful inscription or removal;

c) Show how the relevant decisions interpreted the inscription criteria;

d) Explain how these inscriptions or removals related to the recommendations from the Advisory Bodies;

e) Specifically include the utilization of, or note the obvious omission of the values of minorities, indigenous and/or local peoples;

The compendiums shall be available in both paper and electronic forms, and shall be fully indexed, easily accessible, fully searchable and publicly available;

8. Requests the Director of the World Heritage Centre, in cooperation with the Advisory Bodies, to prepare for discussion at the 31st session:

a) A prioritized list of guidance manuals, in addition to the compendiums noted above, complete with a fully costed budget;

b) A prioritized list of future global studies and thematic frameworks, complete with a fully costed budget;

c) A training programme on outstanding universal value for new Committee Members, complete with a fully costed budget;

9. Requests the World Heritage Centre, in consultation with the Advisory Bodies to propose a new format for Tentative Listing, while taking into account each State Party's situation, to include a level of information to allow:

a) A preliminary evaluation by the Advisory Bodies to guide State Parties in the preparation of their nominations;

b) An evaluation of the Global Strategy by the Advisory Bodies to inform State Parties of possible comparative advantages that might be considered in their nominations, based on the categories and criteria for Outstanding Universal Value;

c) A preliminary study on the Statements of Outstanding Universal Value in the tentative lists in order to assess the entries on those lists against the objectives of the World Heritage Global Strategy;

10. Encourages State Parties to develop feasibility studies for their Tentative Lists;

11. Requests the World Heritage Centre to identify State Parties without Tentative Lists and recommend to the Committee the necessary actions to be taken to assist these countries;

12. Stressing the need to maintain consistency in the decisions of the Committee regarding State of Conservation, inscription of properties on the World Heritage List, and the List of World Heritage in Danger and recognizing that the concept of outstanding universal value is at the core of these decisions;

13. Decides to accept the offer of the Netherlands to host a meeting of experts to elaborate on Chapter IV of the Operational Guidelines, including, but not limited to developing criteria for determining adequate protection and management, the format for the State of Conservation reports, standards for establishing and measuring benchmarks for conservation, criteria for the removal of properties from the List of World Heritage in Danger, and criteria for delisting World Heritage properties;

14. Decides to accept the offer of Israel to support a meeting in Paris on Buffer zones;

15. Further decides to review progress made on this Decision at its 31st session in 2007.