Documents That Have Shaped UNESCO’s World Heritage: Anti-seismic Constructions or Castles of Cards?

The purpose of UNESCO preservation documents is to safeguard World Heritage Sites. UNESCO Conventions are agreements subject to ratification, acceptance or accession by states. The documents that we will analyse below constituted a soft power that functioned as a new primer, fairer and more polysemic, capable of breaking preconceived ideas, convincing the reluctant and defining new standards. The power of bringing the right people together to pursue common goals. The power to harness the wealth of civil society, local communities and the private sector for more effective and stronger collective action. Given the proportions of this statement, this is the strength of UNESCO’s signature. Since its promulgation, UNESCO has undertaken the “preservation and protection of the universal heritage of books, works of art and monuments of historical and scientific interest” (UNESCO, 1945). This universal safeguard was the fuel for the implementation of Conventions that, understood in a pendulum logic, sometimes as a solid preservation platform (an anti-seismic building) and sometimes as a demagogic and fragile propaganda by groups that regulate what should or should not be preserved (a house of cards), guided the cardinal points of safeguarding, despite contentions and tensions.