The Nara document: its achievement and its limits

Resumen

Diversity of heritage, diversity of cultures. Since the implementation of the World Heritage Convention, both data have been taken into account. The contribution of the Nara Conference and subsequent meetings have enabled all of the regions of the world to delve further into those concepts and highlight the need for a flexible application of the test of authenticity. Herb Stovel played a major role in this welcome revolution. Nevertheless, it is the adoption of the “Global strategy” in particular that opened up the World Heritage List to include additional and more diverse sites and, thus, better represent the different nations and cultures. However, both this broad extension and the relativity embraced in the test of authenticity pose problems: the identification of cultural assets, interpretation, the management of urban sites or inhabited landscapes and the reconstruction projects. To ensure the credibility of the Convention, it is important to avoid the temptation of identity withdrawals and of commercial or savage conservation practices, in order to jointly develop universal conservation principles as part of the multilateral international cooperation in compliance with UNESCO’s objectives.