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ABSTRACT
In this article we explore the use of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in the implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. In retracing the ambiguous role accorded to IPRs since the drafting of the Convention and considering the practice of the Organs of the Convention, we highlight discrepancies in the decisions and debates of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage vis-à-vis IPRs. Drawing on our own anthropological and legal perspectives, we shed light on the fragmentation of different disciplinary standpoints and specialist knowledge in the practice of the Organs of the Convention, revealing how observed inconsistencies in the role of IPRs are neither acknowledged nor addressed. This makes the issue of IPRs a blind spot. Yet, ‘working misunderstandings’ facilitate rather than hinder successful interaction among the many players within the Convention, allowing different, and sometimes contradictory, stances to imperfectly coexist.
Acknowledgment
We are grateful to Philip Demgenski, Lucas Lixinski, Tullio Scovazzi and Anita Vaivade for their insightful remarks on a previous version of this article and to William Long and Maya Judd for their linguistic editing.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Decision 10.COM 14.a:6 ITH/15/10.COM/14.a: 6
2 12.COM 11. 9
1. This term, borrowed from the language of development, is used by UNESCO to refer to individuals trained by the organisation in different regions of the world to ‘build the capacities’ of local heritage administrators and entrepreneurs.
2. https://ich.unesco.org/en/capacity-building, accessed 14/06/2022
3. According to Section II of the Convention, its Organs comprise the General Assembly of States Parties, the sovereign body of the Convention, which meets every two years, the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and the Secretariat. The Committee, composed of representatives of 24 States Parties elected for a four-year term, oversees the implementation of the Convention at the international level. It notably examines requests submitted by States Parties for inscription on the Lists and Register established by the Convention and elaborates the operational directives guiding the implementation of the Convention. The Secretariat prepares the documentation of the General Assembly and the Committee, establishes the draft agenda of their meetings and ensures the implementation of their decisions. A key role in the governance of the Convention is played by the ‘Evaluation Body’. The latter recommends decisions concerning the inscription of elements on the Lists of the Convention, the inclusion of good safeguarding practices in the Convention’s Register and the award of some forms of international assistance.
4. See Dikopelo folk music of Bakgatla ba Kgafela in Kgatleng District; Sega tambour of Rodrigues Island; and Međimurska popevka, a folksong from Međimurje.
5. See Craftsmanship of mechanical watchmaking and art mechanics.
6. See Indonesian Batik.
7. See Mediterranean Diet and Tocatì, a shared programme for the safeguarding of traditional games and sports.
8. See Traditional violin craftsmanship in Cremona.
9. Weaving of Mosi (fine ramie) in the Hansan region; Traditional craftsmanship of Çini-making; Know-how of cultivating mastic on the island of Chios; Traditional agricultural practice of cultivating the ‘vite ad alberello’ (head-trained bush vines) of the community of Pantelleria and Argan; practices and know-how concerning the argan tree.
10. See The Art of Neapolitan ‘Pizzaiuolo’. Further examples of elements that reference IPRs include: Artisanal talavera of Puebla and Tlaxcala and ceramics of Talavera de la Reina and El Puente del Arzobispo making process; Al Sadu, traditional weaving skills in the United Arab Emirates; Arabic calligraphy: knowledge, skills and practices; L-Għana, a Maltese folksong tradition; Traditional craftsmanship of making Dumbara Rata Kalala; Al-Qudoud al-Halabiya; Festive cycle around the devotion and worship towards Saint John the Baptist; Durga Puja in Kolkata; and Cultural Heritage of Boka Navy Kotor: a festive representation of a memory and cultural identity.
11. See for instance Unit 8: ICH and sustainable development, Case Study 20: Safeguarding and income generation by exploring new markets for traditionally produced cloth in Uganda; Unit 55: Workshop on policy development for intangible cultural heritage safeguarding, Hand-out 7: Introduction to intellectual property and intangible cultural heritage and Case study 45: Safeguarding and patenting a cheese-making process. All available at capacity building material repository, https://ich.unesco.org/en/capacity-building-materials
12. Private correspondence with Harriet Deacon, responsible for developing these capacity building materials.
13. Decision 10.COM 14.a:6; ITH/14/EXP/3:2.
14. Decision 7. GA. 9.
15. LHE/21/16.COM/10 Rev.: 8.
16. ITH/17/12.COM/11:7.
17. ITH/17/12.COM/11:7.
18. ITH/15/10.COM/10.b:36.
19. Decision 13.COM 10.b.4.
20. LHE/21/16.COM/8:14.
21. LHE/21/16.COM/8:14.
22. LHE/21/16.COM/8:19.
23. ITH/17/12.COM/11:7.
24. ITH/17/12.COM/11:7.
25. ITH/17/12.COM/11:7.
26. ITH/17/12.COM/11:7.
27. Decision 12.COM 11.b.17.
28. Nomination file no. 00722.
29. Decision 7. COM. 6.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Chiara Bortolotto
Chiara Bortolotto holds the UNESCO chair in Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development at CY Cergy Paris Université. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Geneva and a senior researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. She received her PhD in Social Anthropology and Ethnology from the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (Paris). Her research explores the social life of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage addressing in particular the intersection between heritage and sustainable development. Her work is based on an ethnography of the UNESCO policy world where she explores the performative power of administrative apparatuses and the role of human emotions in the making of global governance. In following the transformations of an international Convention from the international arena to local heritage projects, she engages with UNESCO, heritage agencies and non-governmental organisations while reflexively investigating the ways this complex positionality challenges classic participant observation, the comfort zone of analytical distance and triggers collaborative dilemmas.
Benedetta Ubertazzi
Benedetta Ubertazzi is a UNESCO Facilitator on the global capacity building programme for the effective implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Associate Professor at the University of Milan-Bicocca, lecturer for the WIPO-Turin Master of Laws in Intellectual Property and expert for the WIPO Indigenous and Local Community Women Entrepreneurship Program. Von Humboldt Foundation Fellow, hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, she is a member of the International Law Association Committees for Participation in Global Cultural Heritage Governance (appointed by the chairs) and Intellectual Property and Private International Law. Co-evaluator for UNESCO at the Regional Research Centre for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage in West and Central Asia (UNESCO Category 2 Centre) based in Tehran, she served as expert in the Italian delegation for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation since 2010. She acted as a member of the ‘HIPAMS Heritage Sensitive Intellectual Property and Marketing Strategies: India’ project supported by the British Library Sustainable Development Programme. Benedetta was appointed as co-facilitator of capacity-building for sustainable development plans for several communities around the world, among which recently (2023) those of Greece and Italy.