From Traditional Culture and Folklore to Intangible Cultural Heritage: Evolution of a Treaty

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to explore the evolution of the 2003 Convention in particular by examining the international policy priorities that led up to this process and also the relevant prevailing international law.Moreover, this process involved moving from seeking to safeguard "traditional culture and folklore", then to regulating the neologism (in international law, at least) of "intangible cultural heritage" and the implications of that shift.One of these, of course, is the participatory heritage safeguarding model advocated by the 2003 Convention, highlighting its strongly human rights-based orientation.Furthermore, the relationship of the Convention with intellectual property (IP) rules and that of UNESCO with the WIPO in this endeavour is also explored, both up to the adoption of the 2003 Convention and the subsequent work in WIPO to develop sui generis IP rules to protect traditional knowledge and cultural expressions.In view of the divergence between UNESCO's broader * Janet Blake is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Shahid Beheshti (Tehran) where she is a member of the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights, Peace and Democracy, the Centre for Excellence in Education for Sustainable Development and the Silk Roads Centre.She has acted as an International Consultant to UNESCO since 1999, mostly in the field of intangible cultural heritage and implementing the 2003 Convention.Since 2015, she has also been a Global Facilitator for UNESCO's Capacity-building under the 2003 Convention and has provided advice at the governmental level on developing national law and policy for ICH safeguarding.

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