At their sessions held in December 1975, the Intergovernmental Copyright Committee and the Executive Committee of the Berne Union requested the Secretariat of Unesco to carry out an exhaustive study of all the aspects involved in the protection of folklore. Given the links with copyright that such protection may have, the Committees further decided to include this matter on the agenda of their present session.
To carry out this study, and in accordance with resolution 6.121 adopted by the General Conference of Unesco at its nineteenth session, a Committee of Experts on the Legal Protection of Folklore was convened by the Director-General of Unesco. Composed of folklore specialists and legal experts, invited in their personal capacity by the Director-General, it met in Tunis from 11 to 15 July at the kind invitation of the Tunisian Government.
The documents provided for the Committee of Experts included a study of the various aspects involved in the protection of folklore. This study is included as Appendix 1 to the present document. The Report of the Committee of Experts which met in Tunis appears as Appendix 2. The Committee of Experts further requested its Rapporteur to draw conclusions from the discussions (paragraph 45 of the Committee’s Report) and these are to be found in Appendix 3 to this document.