This illuminating book offers an authoritative analysis of the legal issues relating to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. Taking a critical approach, it provides a unique insight into the impact of international and national law on the present and future safeguarding processes of intangible cultural heritage. Expert contributors draw on the results of an international study conducted in 26 countries to illustrate how domestic laws comprehend the notion of intangible cultural heritage. The book explores the relationship that these states maintain with the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage and highlight challenging concepts.

Intangible cultural heritage is the traditional practices, expressions, knowledge, and skills that form part of a community's culture. It is protected by a 2003 UNESCO Convention, and by several regional and national instruments. This book analyses its legal protection, including from within human rights, intellectual property, and contract law.

This book explores the objects, means and ends of international cultural heritage protection. It starts from a broad conception of cultural heritage that encompasses both tangible property, such as museum objects or buildings, and intangible heritage, such as languages and traditions. Cultural heritage thus defined is protected by various legal regimes, including the law of armed conflicts, UNESCO Conventions and international criminal law. With a view to strengthening international protection, the authors analyze existing regimes and elaborate innovative concepts, such as blue helmets of culture and safe havens for endangered cultural heritage. Finally, the ends of international protection come to the fore, and the authors address possible conflicts between protecting cultural diversity and wishes to strengthen cultural identity.

This book describes the global legal framework for safeguarding the “Intangible Cultural Heritage” – as defined by the UNESCO Convention in 2003 – and analyses its use in selected countries in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe. Each of the contributions has been prepared by high profile experts and strategically addresses countries that are representative for their corresponding area. Our understanding of the term “Cultural Heritage” has changed considerably over the past few decades, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the concept also includes traditions and living expressions that we inherit from our ancestors and pass on to our descendants. UNESCO has recognised and responded to this change of perspective, creating through the 2003 Convention an international instrument for safeguarding the “Intangible Cultural Heritage”, a notion including oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe, as well as the knowledge and skills needed to produce traditional crafts. New values, practices and heritages were recognized – from the ancient African rituals to the Mexican Mariachi musical expression to the Brazilian Samba and the Mediterranean Diet – all of which convey strong social and cultural meaning for their community's identity. Intangible Cultural Heritage is a growing, relatively recent field of study and also an emblem of the dialogue between distant populations with different cultures, which is the reason why a comparative approach is the most appropriate basis for conducting an analysis of how the contracting states to the Convention live up to their commitments through national safeguarding measures and enhancement policies or through international cooperation projects.

Setting out the international law principles and rules derived from the various international conventions that address cultural heritage in its various manifestations, this book critically evaluates the extent to which these international laws provide an effective and coherent framework for the protection of cultural heritage.

Bringing together key insights from expert legal and heritage academics and practitioners, this book explores the existence and safeguarding of contemporary forms of intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Providing a detailed analysis of the international legal frameworks relevant to ICH, the contributing authors then go on to challenge the pervasive view that heritage is about ‘old’ tangible objects by highlighting the existence, role and importance of contemporary forms of ICH to modern society.

With disappearing music venues, and arts and culture communities at constant risk of displacement in our urban centers, the preservation of intangible cultural heritage is of growing concern to global cities. This book addresses the role and protection of intangible cultural heritage in the urban context. Using the methodology of Urban Legal Anthropology, the author provides an ethnographic account of the civic effort of Toronto to become a Music City from 2014-18 in the context of redevelopment and gentrification pressures. Through this, the book elucidates the problems cities like Toronto have in equitably protecting intangible cultural heritage and what can be done to address this. It also evaluates the engagement that Toronto and other cities have had with international legal frameworks intended to protect intangible cultural heritage, as well as potential counterhegemonic uses of hegemonic legal tools. Understanding urban intangible cultural heritage and the communities of people who produce it is of importance to a range of actors, from urban developers looking to formulate livable and sustainable neighbourhoods, to city leaders looking for ways in which their city can flourish, to scholars and individuals concerned with equitability and the right to the city. This book is the beginning of a conservation about what is important for us to protect in the city for future generations beyond built structures, and the role of intangible cultural heritage in the creation of full and happy lives. The book is of interest to legal and sociolegal readers, specifically those who study cities, cultural heritage law, and legal anthropology.