Adopted November 1st 2009
Ise City, Japan
Ise Declaration on “World Heritage for Peace”
Preamble
The World Heritage Symposium held on November 1st, 2009 in Ise City, Japan, studied and discussed the contributions World Heritage makes to build and maintain world peace. During the symposium, examples appropriate for the verification of this theme were presented and shared among participants. As a result, it was recognized with certainty that the transmission of World Cultural and Natural Heritage to future generations is essential to the spiritual progress and wellbeing of humankind itself and therefore is an issue that needs serious and urgent attention. It was also understood that World Heritage does contribute to building and maintaining world peace. In particular, it was illustrated that specific types of heritage, such as cultural routes, trans-national and trans-boundary heritage and serial nominations, possess the strong potential of contributing to the building and maintaining of world peace. From this point of view, it is important and necessary to expand and deepen the concept and spirit of World Heritage in accordance with the spirit of UNESCO that promotes the Culture of Peace. In recognition of the above, we, the members of ICOMOS CIIC and Japan/ICOMOS, as well as the Presidents of the National Committees of ICOMOS from Argentina, Côte d’Ivoire, Spain and Sri Lanka and representatives/members from Australia, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Cuba, Greece, Italy, Israel, Mexico, Palestine, the Republic of Korea, Romania and USA as participants of the Ise symposium, recognize the great importance of cooperation, despite various challenges, in the efforts toward the building and maintaining of peace in areas that share World Heritage. We hereby adopt the five actions of this declaration:
Declaration
Action 1
To establish an international working group to study further how World Heritage can and should contribute to the furthering of world peace, including the possibilities of revising the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, and to request the international governing bodies of ICOMOS to support this working group which following the existing rules will submit its conclusions to them for approval.
Action 2
To encourage the development of mechanisms with the participation of relevant States Parties that share heritage for the purpose of removing threats to the conservation and transmission of heritage and ensuring the integrated and comprehensive management and monitoring of trans-national heritage.
Action 3
To promote intercultural heritage, such as cultural routes, encourage the understanding among different stakeholders and enhance it with the purpose of bringing people closer.
Action 4
To promote responsible tourism of heritage and welcome the proposal of measures and model projects that benefit the local economy by reducing poverty, a cause of conflicts, as long as such uses do not contradict the principles of World Heritage.
Action 5
To encourage the States Parties to the UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention to identify and nominate for inscription on the World Heritage List, cultural routes and serial nominations that make a significant contribution to the establishment of world peace in a manner that reflects the outcomes of comprehensive scientific research.
