The UNESCO World Heritage Convention and Japan’s Pursuit of International Cultural Legitimacy

ABSTRACT

Between 1993 and 2018, Japan successfully applied to have 18 cultural sites and four natural sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List of places deemed to be of ‘outstanding universal value’ and ‘interest’. At first glance, the former appear as a disparate collection of monuments chosen strictly on the basis of their individual merits, but a closer examination reveals a number are bound together by a common discourse – ‘the Japan as cultural synthesizer thesis’ – which dates back to the Meiji period. In 1916 Ukita Kazutami lamented that while Japan’s unique ability to synthesize Asian and Western civilizations had positioned it to usher in a new, more advanced global civilization, Japan has never produced any unique cultural achievements worthy of the world’s respect. On what basis, then, could Japan gain international respect and justify its claim to world leadership? The World Heritage List has belatedly provided Japan with a venue to answer that question. UNESCO’s experts have bestowed international recognition upon cultural sites chosen and narrated by Japan to celebrate a proud national heritage that also possesses universal value characterized by respect for foreign cultures, religious tolerance, respect for nature, industrial communitarianism, and a commitment to world peace.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Ted Boyle, two anonymous reviewers, and the editors of Japanese Studies for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Notes

¹ Nakamura attributes the government’s delay before ratifying the Convention to its belief that the Convention’s core aim – the preservation of national heritage – was already being addressed by Japan’s existing system of conservation laws. See ‘Seiji ni honrosareru sekai isan’, 11.

² See also Askew, 2010.

³ See also Martin, 2019.

⁴ According to Scott, this preservation movement gained momentum through the efforts of Ernest Fenollosa and Okakura Kakuzō, who cataloged cultural and artistic objects, pioneered art education and inaugurated an art movement emphasizing national traditions, culture and history. See Scott, 2003: 335–344. Suzuki notes that since Japan’s imperial family did not possess a private trove of cultural treasures that could be donated to the Meiji state for display as Japan’s cultural heritage, the state aggressively procured items from temples and private collectors, many of which were transferred to the Imperial Household Ministry, even as it prohibited public access to imperial tombs. See Suzuki, 2002: 3–4.

⁵ Heritage conservation continued to receive government attention after Meiji, with the passage in 1919 of the Law for the Preservation of Historic Sites, Places of Scenic Beauty and Natural Monuments; the 1929 Law for the Preservation of National Treasures, which superseded the 1897 Law for the Preservation of Temples and Shrines; and the 1933 Law for the Preservation of Important Art Objects and Others. See Akagawa, 2014: 50, and Kakiuchi, 2014: 2.

⁶ The 1950 law also established the Committee for the Protection of Cultural Properties, forerunner of the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

⁷ For a dissenting view, see Suzuki, who argues that the 1950 law introduced a definition of heritage that was foreign to both Japan and to the concept of world heritage. Suzuki, 2002: 4–5.

⁸ See also Sand, 2015.

⁹ According to Brumann, these and other reforms adopted during and after the 1990s ‘redefined cultural heritage in more inclusive and less Eurocentric ways, by expanding its scope rather than by restricting or redefining any of its established categories’. See Brumann, 2014: 2180.

¹⁰ This requirement was introduced in the Operational Guidelines in 2005 and all sites inscribed since 2007 present such a statement. In 2007 ‘the World Heritage Committee also requested that Statements of Outstanding Universal Value be drafted and approved retrospectively for all World Heritage properties inscribed between 1978 and 2006ʹ (UNESCO World Heritage Committee, 2013: 2).

¹¹ The system has not been immune to problems of personal bias and culture-bound notions of OUV among the experts. See Nakamura, 2011: 206.

¹² According to Meskell, UNESCO has acknowledged such problems as divergent interpretations of the Convention and OUV. See Meskell, 2013: 486.

¹³ According to Olwen Beazley, the US suggested that the Dome be part of a joint nomination with the Trinity Site in New Mexico because it ‘wanted to illustrate that, through the use of the atomic bomb, world peace had been achieved’ See Beazley, 2010: 50.

¹⁴ Kingston found that portions of the April 2019 revised display in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum offer a more balanced and critical treatment of Japan’s culpability in the Asia-Pacific War. See Kingston, 2019.

¹⁵ In December 2017, Japanese government sources announced plans to make public some testimony denying that Korean workers were forced to work under harsh conditions at the Mitsubishi coal mine on Hashima Island. See ‘Japan to publicize testimony’, 2017.

¹⁶ Disagreements between ICOMOS and the World Heritage Committee over WHL nominations have become more frequent as changes to the Committee’s composition have enabled State Parties to ‘exert increasing influence over voting with more overt strategies of influence, international pressure and soft power diplomacy’. See Meskell et. al, 2015: 435.