ICOMOS World Heritage Panel 2017 - 2018

 From 20 to 26 November 2017, the ICOMOS World Heritage Panel met at ICOMOS International Secretariat, Charenton-le-Pont, in order to discuss 23 cultural and mixed properties nominated for inscription on the World Heritage List in 2018. This year, nominations included three proposals to extend existing WH properties.

The ICOMOS Panel meeting was divided into three parts:

During the first part from 20 to 22 November, the Panel members examined and discussed the 23 cultural and mixed sites nominated for inscription.

During the second part held on 23 and 24 November, ICOMOS offered the opportunity to the Delegations from each nominating States Parties to hold meetings in order to discuss the issues raised by their nominations during the Panel meeting.

During the third and last part of the Panel held on 25 to 26 November, Panel members discussed again the nominated properties and adopted provisional recommendations. During this part of the meeting, the content of the technical recommendations was discussed together with the content of the Interim reports and the additional information requests.

Interim reports, as prescribed by the revised Operational Guidelines, were delivered to each nominating State Party between December 2017 and January 2018.

Before the discussions took place, Panel members rigorously examined a range of documents including the nomination dossiers and additional information submitted by States Parties as well as the ICOMOS evaluation mission reports, the desk reviews and information provided by relevant ICOMOS National Committees. All this information was submitted to Panel members two months in advance before the meeting and Panel members were requested to provide a written report with their views on the basis of a template provided by the Evaluation Unit.

Over a period of eight days, the ICOMOS WH Panel, composed of international conservation experts from 21 countries representing all five continents, carried out in-depth discussions about the nominated sites in order to consider whether the proposed sites fulfill the criteria required for inscription on the World Heritage List and to draft recommendations, in line with the requirements established in the Operational Guidelines for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention, for the next session of the WH Committee to be held in July 2018.

To ensure the quality of the decision-making process of the ICOMOS WH Panel, the collective expertise of the Panel was complimented by the advice provided by the ICOMOS advisors as well as the knowledge of international experts from ICOMOS International Scientific Committees who are invited for their specific field of expertise and on an annual basis, according to the characteristics of the nominated properties to be examined.

Furthermore, each member of the Panel undertakes to attend the whole of the meeting, and to actively take part in the work of the Panel. In particular, each Panel member reviewed several files in detail and provided a written report before the beginning of the meeting.

All Panel members must take care to avoid potential perceptions of conflicts of interest. In all cases, an ICOMOS Panel member whose nationality is the same as that of the subject of the evaluation is absent from the discussion and decision-making process. At the beginning of the meeting, all Panel members are required to sign the ICOMOS World Heritage Policy Paper and ICOMOS Commitment of Confidentiality (available on www.icomos.org).

The Panel members undertake to respect the confidentiality of the discussions that occur, including the agreed ICOMOS recommendations. In finalizing and releasing the outcomes of the evaluations, communication with States Parties should be conducted solely via the ICOMOS International Secretariat.

The Panel working languages are English and French. Simultaneous translation is provided by ICOMOS through a team of professional translators.

Whereas Advisers’ travel and accommodation expenses are covered by ICOMOS through the World Heritage budget, the ICOMOS officers, representatives of ICOMOS International Scientific Committees and invited experts are required to cover these expenses themselves. The World Heritage Committee allocated some extra-budget to allow ICOMOS to provide funding to some of the experts in order to ensure the balanced representation of all regions.

An ICOMOS WH Panel met again in March 2018 to discuss the outcomes following the November - December 2017 Panel, notably the responses received from the States Parties contacted with further requests, in order to finalize the ICOMOS evaluation reports which are submitted to the World Heritage Centre and distributed to the Committee six weeks before the upcoming WH Committee session. The World Heritage Committee shall then make the final decisions on whether to inscribe or to not inscribe a site, defer a decision, or refer a nomination back to the State Party. 

Also during the March Panel meeting, four referred back nominations from previous World Heritage Committee sessions were examined and discussed by the ICOMOS Panel and some cases for Upstream assistance were presented to the ICOMOS Panel.

List of 2017 Panel Members

ICOMOS Panel Chairmen

Alfredo Conti (Argentina), ICOMOS Vice-President

Toshiyuki Kono (Japan), ICOMOS ICOMOS President (elected December 2017)

ICOMOS Bureau

Kirsti Kovanen (Finland), ICOMOS Secretary General

Peter Phillips (Australia), ICOMOS Secretary General (elected December 2017)

Grellan Rourke (Ireland), ICOMOS Vice-President

Representatives from the ICOMOS International Scientific Committees

ICAHM: Douglas Comer (USA)

CIVVIH: Claus-Peter Echter (Germany)

ISCCL: Nancy Pollock-Ellwand (Canada)

Invited Experts

Nasser Al-Jahwari (Oman)

Nathalia Dushkina (Russia)

Abdoul Aziz Guissé (Senegal)

Massimo Preite (Italy)

Navin Piplani (India)

Nathan Schlanger (France)

Hee Kwon Shin (Korea)

Stefan Wessman (Finland)

ICOMOS World Heritage Advisers (Cycle 2017-2018)

Kristal Buckley (Australia)

Luisa De Marco (Italy)

Susan Denyer (UK)

Geoffroy Hemlich (France)

Albino Jopela (Mozambique)

Hossam Mahdy (Egypt)

James Molnar (Canada)

Britta Rudolff (Germany)

Anas Soufan (Syria)

Relationship between nominations and Panel members per region

Region	Dossiers 2018	%	Panel members	%
Africa	0	0	2	8
Arab States	1	4	3	12
Asia/Pacific	7	31	5	20
Eur/NA	14	61	14	56
LAC	1	4	1	4
TOTAL	23	100	25	100