The new ICOMOS International Charter and Guidance on Sites with Intangible Cultural Heritage defines standards and principles for intangible cultural heritage
ICOMOS is pleased to announce the adoption of the ICOMOS International Charter and Guidance on Sites with Intangible Cultural Heritage, which was approved at its recent Annual General Assembly in November 2024 in Ouro Preto, Brazil. This milestone marks the culmination of several years of dedicated work by the ICOMOS International Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICICH).
The ICOMOS International Charter and Guidance on Sites with Intangible Cultural Heritage aligns with the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, for which ICOMOS is an accredited NGO, emphasizing the importance of intangible cultural heritage as a key aspect of the collective culture and experience of humanity. The tangible and intangible are inextricably linked. Traditional, social and cultural practices, along with the knowledge passed down through generations, provide understanding and add meaning, value, and context to objects, sites and other physical spaces.
Intangible cultural heritage and its links to sites are acknowledged in ICOMOS Charters, principles and declarations since the Kimberley Declaration on the Intangible Heritage of Cultural Spaces (2003), and the subsequent Teemaneng Declaration, which was first oulined in Kimberley, South Africa (2007).
This new Charter and Guidance was developed by a working group of ICICH, which included ICOMOS members from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Egypt, Finland, France, India, Mauritius, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Thailand. The process involved workshops and meetings with individuals both within and beyond the ICOMOS network, in collaboration with many other organisations and universities.
Within the international conservation framework established by ICOMOS, the International Charter and Guidance on Sites with Intangible Cultural Heritage addresses the deep relationships between diferents aspects of heritage and the communities that sustain them. It provides principles and guidance for professional heritage practices, including the management and protection of sites, documentation and recording, sharing and transmission, presentation and interpretation, managing change and conflict, and profesional training in heritage – all in permanent collaboration with stakeholders and community custodians.