This book critically analyses the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO's latest and ground-breaking treaty in the area of cultural heritage protection. Intangible cultural heritage is broadly understood as the social processes that inform our living cultures, and our social cohesion and identity as communities and peoples. On the basis of this conception, the Treaty proposes to turn our understanding of how, for whom, and why heritage is safeguarded on its head, by putting communities, groups and individuals at the centre of the safeguarding process.
The commentary, written by leading experts in the field from all continents and multiple disciplines, provides an authoritative guide to interpreting and implementing not only this Treaty, but also its ripple effects on how we think about cultural heritage and our experience with it as a part of our living cultures. This book is of interest to lawyers, policy-makers, anthropologists, cultural diplomacy specialists, archaeologists, cultural heritage studies experts, and, foremost, the people who practice and enact this heritage.

Janet Blake is Associate Professor in Law at the University of Shahid Beheshti in Tehran. Since 1999, she has worked closely with UNESCO on the development and drafting of the 2003 Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention and acted as Rapporteur to the two Restricted Drafting Group meetings that developed the First Preliminary Draft of the Convention in 2002. She co-authored the recent review on the implementation of Intangible Heritage Convention for UNESCO. She is the author of International Cultural Heritage Law(OUP) and Commentary on the UNESCO 2003 Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage(ILA, 2006).
Lucas Lixinski is Associate Professor at Faculty of Law, UNSW Sydney. He holds a PhD in International Law from the European University Institute. He is the author of Intangible Cultural Heritage in International Law (OUP 2013) and International Heritage Law for Communities: Exclusion and Re-Imagination (OUP 2019). He is Rapporteur of the International Law Association Committee on Participation in Global Heritage Governance.