A review of the Global Strategy for a Balanced, Representative and Credible World Heritage List 1994-2004

A critical analysis is given of the decade of implementation of the ‘Global Strategy for a Balanced, Representative and Credible World Heritage List’, adopted by the World Heritage Committee in 1994, to highlight its successes but also its problems and pitfalls. This paper is structured around two key themes of the 1994 report on the Global Strategy. First, the need to rectify some apparent thematic, geographic and chronological imbalances and discrepancies on the World Heritage List is discussed. This first part demonstrates that some of these imbalances have not been rectified. It also puts forward reasons for this ongoing situation. The second part of the paper is concerned with the recommendation of the 1994 expert meeting on the Global Strategy to consider sites of (potential) outstanding universal value in their broad social and anthropological context. This part considers, in particular, efforts to encourage the participation and involvement of local and/or indigenous communities in the nomination, conservation and management of World Heritage sites. The paper concludes with some suggestions for a more successful implementation of the Global Strategy.