This section introduces Japan’s financial contribution to the preparation of what became the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

International Meeting of Experts on Intangible Cultural Heritage
(Rio de Janeiro, January 2002, US$ 83,500 partial contribution)

and

First, Second and Third Sessions of the Intergovernmental Meeting of Experts on Drafting a Preliminary Draft Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage
(UNESCO Paris, September 2002, US$ 250,860; February 2003, US$ 250,860; May 2003, US$280,917)

An International Meeting held in Washington D.C. in 1999 demonstrated that the 1989 Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore, originally intended to protect the intangible cultural heritage, failed to fully achieve its goal due to its non-binding nature, which offered little encouragement for States. Nevertheless, the sentiment that the preservation of the intangible cultural heritage is both timely and necessary continued to grow, and experts suggested that UNESCO consider creating a legal instrument of a more binding nature. And indeed, at its 31st session (2001), the General Conference of UNESCO decided that the issue should be regulated by means of an international convention.

Pursuant to this decision, in January 2002, a meeting of experts, financed partially by the UNESCO/Japan Funds-in-Trust, was organized in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to initiate the first steps on the long road that led to the preliminary draft of the Convention. The purpose of the meeting was to reflect upon the priority domains to be addressed in the Convention. This meeting and a follow-up one (June 2002) resulted in an initial outline of the preliminary draft of the Convention.

At its 164th session (2002), the Executive Board of UNESCO invited the Director-General of UNESCO to convene one or more intergovernmental meetings “to define the scope and to take forward the work on the preliminary draft of an international convention”. Acting on this decision, the Director-General convened two plenary sessions of such a meeting, held in September 2002 and February 2003. A consolidated text produced by an intersessional working group in April 2003 formed the basis of the third session, which took place in June 2003. At the end of this last session, governmental experts finalized a draft text for a Convention that was sent to the Director-General of UNESCO. The three plenary sessions of the intergovernmental meeting were organized with financial assistance from the UNESCO/Japan Funds-in-Trust. Governmental experts from both Member States and intergovernmental organizations, such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), as well as NGOs all participated. The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, unanimously adopted by the 32nd General Conference on 17 October 2003, is the result of this long intellectual, political and legal process.