Chengdu International Conference on Intangible Cultural Heritage in Celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage

Chengdu, China, 14 to 16 June 2013

Practical information
The Conference will be held at the Shangri-La Hotel in Chengdu. It will take place in conjunction with the Fourth International Festival of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Chengdu. Languages of the Conference will be English, French and Chinese.

Ten years have passed since the adoption of the 2003 Convention, including seven years of actual implementation at the international level. This high-level conference will look back on that decade in order to reflect on the Convention’s function, role and value while also looking forward to its future. The aim is to reflect profoundly on the life of the 2003 Convention so far, providing a strategic opportunity to discuss the intentions of its framers, to identify its achievements thus far and to define priorities for the future.

Scientific and legal experts and States Parties officials who took part actively in the preparation of the 2003 Convention will participate in a series of plenary round-table panels seeking to look backward and forward at the same time, focussing particularly on the challenges facing the Convention today:

• Achievements of the Convention: changing the discourse of ICH and implanting new concepts
• Inventorying and listing
• Parallel universes: intellectual property, world heritage and cultural goods and services
• Safeguarding experiences in the States Parties
• Open questions and future directions

Working Documents

• Programme
  ITH/13/EXP/1 Rev.: English|French|Chinese in preparation
• Concept note: the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention: its first decade
  ITH/13/EXP/2: English|French|Chinese
• Round-table 1: Achievements of the Convention: changing the discourse of intangible cultural heritage and implanting new concepts
  ITH/13/EXP/3: English|French|Chinese
• Round-table 2: Inventorying and listing
  ITH/13/EXP/4: English|French|Chinese
• Round-table 3: Parallel universes: intellectual property, world heritage and cultural goods and services
  ITH/13/EXP/5 Rev.: English|French|Chinese
• Round-table 4: Safeguarding experiences in the States Parties
  ITH/13/EXP/6: English|French|Chinese
• Round-table 5: Open questions and future directions
  ITH/13/EXP/7: English|French|Chinese
• Chengdu recommendations
  ITH/13/EXP/8: English|French|Chinese

Information Documents

• List of documents
  ITH/13/EXP/INF.1.1: English|French|Chinese in preparation
• Practical information
  ITH/13/EXP/INF.1.2: English|Chinese
• List of participants
  ITH/13/EXP/INF.1.3: English in preparation|French in preparation|Chinese in preparation

Do you want to learn more about the history of the 2003 Convention?

Please see the following meetings between 1973 and 2003 that led up to the Convention:

• History and precursors 1973-2000
• Drafting the text of the Convention 2001-2003

The Conference will be held under the patronage of the Chinese Ministry of Culture, Sichuan Provincial People’s Government, Chinese National Commission for UNESCO and UNESCO, and will be organized by the Chengdu Municipal People’s Government, China National Centre for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage, Sichuan Provincial Department of Culture, International Training Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (CRIHAP) and UNESCO Section for Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Contacts

• Beate Strøm
  Section for Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO
  7, place du Fontenoy
  75352 Paris 07, France
  Tel: +33 (0)1 45 68 47 39
  e-mail: b.strom@unesco.org

• Yuan Jie
  International Training Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region under the Auspices of UNESCO (CRIHAP)
  Jia 1 Huixin Beili, 100029 Chaoyang District, Beijing, P.R. China
  Tel: +86-10-6496-6526 ; fax: +86-10-6496-9281
  e-mail: benyuanjie@126.com