The Spirit of the Convention – Interlocking Principles and Ethics for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Abstract

Since December 2015, a set of twelve Ethical Principles for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage enriches the paradigm of the 2003 UNESCO Convention. At the meeting of its Intergovernmental Committee at Windhoek where those principles were endorsed, and where a whole chapter of new operational directives was fine-tuned in order to respond to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN General Assembly, 25 September 2015), the UNESCO Secretariat was instructed to build an on-line platform with a toolkit about ethics and safeguarding intangible heritage. Accredited NGOs were also finally invited to collaborate and play a role in developing and updating the 2003 UNESCO Convention and its operational directives. This is a major breakthrough. In this article we trace and discuss this ‘hop’ (1999), ‘skip’ (2012-2015) and ‘jump’ process (2016 onwards) in the emerging paradigm of safeguarding ICH. Why twelve principles and not a supermodel code of ethics for (safeguarding) intangible heritage? How do innovations like ‘sustained free and informed consent’ or ‘benefit sharing’ open new doors? What do anthropology, folklore studies and museology have to offer? Is the online platform a good idea, in the light of recent developments in international conventions on biodiversity, bioethics or the work of WIPO and other organisations ?