Transboundary Properties and Serial Transnational Properties

in the World Heritage List

 Taipei, 6 and 7 March 2009

Yukio Nishimura

Professor of University of Tokyo and former Vice President of ICOMOS

1.       Idea of Transboundary and Transnational Properties

As of February 2009, there are 10 cultural, 10 natural and 1 mixed properties in the World Heriage List.  The list of all the inscribed properties is shown in the Table 1 below.

There are two types of such properties; transboundary and serial transnational ones.  Transboundary property is defined as properties “on the territory of all concerned State Parties having adjacent borders” (section 134 of the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, January 2008 version, hereafter referred as the ‘Operational Guidelines’), whereas serial property as one which “will include component parts related because they belong to:

a) the same historico-cultural group:

b) the same type of property which is characteristic of the geographical zone:

c) the same geological, geomorphological formation, the same biogeographic province, or the same ecosystem type.”(section 137 of the Operational Guidelines) 

And the serial nomination “may occur either

a) on the territory of single State Party; or

b) within the territory of different State Parties, which need not be contiguous and is nominated with the consent of all State Parties concerned (serial transnational property.”(section 138 of the Operational Guidelines) 

Idea of such property that covers more than one country occurred in 1932 at the border between United States and Canada, when Waterton Lakes National Park (Alberta, Canada) and Glacier National Park (Montana, USA) formed the world’s first International Peace Park, called Waterton Glacier International Peace Park, which was eventually inscribed in the World Heritage List in 1995.

The first transboundary inscription was much earlier than the Waterton Glacier International Peace Park.  It was Kuane/Wrangell-St Elias/Glacier Bay/Tatshenshini-Alsek on the border of Alaska, USA and Canada inscribed in 1979 and extended in 1992 and 1994.  This was a joint nomination of the two State Parties, which is recommended by the UNESCO because it symbolizes the peace and international collaboration through nomination processes.

Transboundary properties are, therefore the outcome of international efforts for nature conservation and peace just after the Great Depression in 1929.  At present, there are more than 170 transboundary national parks and reserves in 113 countries, out of which 11 are in the World Heritage List.

2.       Transboundary and Serial Transnational Properties inscribed in the World Heritage List

Compare with the natural nominations, cultural nominations with international nature started later, because of the understandable reason of national identity and/or national pride.

While all the natural properties are inscribed in the List as transboundary properties, majority of the cultural properties are inscribed as serial transnational properties under the category of the same historico-cultural group.

The first cultural inscription was Jesuit Missions in Argentina and Brazil.  Although these missions were the same historical background, nomination was submitted separately by each State Party, and eventual inscription in 1983 (Brazil) and in 1984 (Argentina).

This is a case that second State Party later joined the original serial national property.  The same extensions were seen in the listed properties such as Belfries of Belgium and France, and Frontiers of the Roman Empire of UK and Germany.  The former; 32 Belgian belfries were initially nominated by Belgium then later 23 belfries in France and one belfry in Belgium were jointly included as an extension of the original inscription, while the latter; original inscription by UK under the title of Hadrian’s Wall in 1987 was renamed as Frontiers of the Roman Empire in 2005 when 550 km stretches of German party of Roman Limes was included in the List as an extension of the 1987 inscription, and again in 2008 the property was extended to include Scottish 60-km Antonine Wall built by Emperor Antonius Pius.

Most unique cultural nomination was Struve Geodetic Arc proposed by ten State Party at the same time, namely Belarus, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Republic of Moldova, Norway, Russian Federation, Sweden and Ukraine.   This is a 2,820 km of survey points, that is, testimony of earth science history in the early 19^th century to measure the accurate shape of the globe.  This was also a symbol of international collaboration.

Muskauer Park/Park Muzakowski inscribed in 2004 may be the typical transboundary property.  This is a large landscape park created by a single person in early 19^th century, now divided into to different countries, Germany and Poland.   The two State Parties jointly nominated this exceptional landscape park by using two names, German and Polish.

3.        Examples of separate nominations of the same historico-cultural group

There are some unfortunate cases that each State Party nominated her own cultural property, which may fall into the category of “the same historico-cultural group” or “the same type of property which is characteristic of the geographical zone.” (section 137 of the Operational Guidelines)

Classic case was the Route of Santiago de Compostela, whose Spanish part was inscribed in the List in 1993.  The route was and still is taken by the pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela, another World Heritage City inscribed in 1985.  The property comprises uninterrupted stretches of the route and related cultural landscape from the border of France to the pilgrimage site with some 1,800 historic buildings.   In the process of site evaluation, ICOMOS hinted possible extension of the property outside Spain.  However, French part of the route was separately inscribed in the List in 1998 under the title of Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France, which is composed of only 69 separated individual historic structures out of 800 possible site along the route in France.  This is because history an degree of the development along the route has been different from each country since the end of medieval era.  

Another example is the cultural heritage of Koguryo Kingdom.  The Complex of Koburyo Tombs, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s first and only (as of February 2009) inscription in the World Heritage List was delayed until 2004,when China was ready to put Capital Cities and Tombs of the Ancient Koguryo Kingdom forward, which was inscribed in the List in the same year.

    In June 2008, Temple of Preah Vihear, Cambodia, was inscribed in the List, which heightened a certain political and military tension between Thailand and Cambodia on the Thai-Cambodian border, because the Temple located on the cliff of the border and it is only accessible from Thai territory.  Large Temple compound extends beyond the border whose exact demarcation is not yet settled.  Temple of Preah Vihear could play a great role for reconciliation or bi-lateral cultural cooperation, but in reality, it created yet another unfortunate dispute between two State Parties.

    This unwelcome rivalry or lack of mutual coordination can be seen even in natural heritage, such as Iguazú National Park, Argentina inscribed in 1984 and Iguaçu National Park, Brazil in 1986.  Both National Parks share the world’s largest and the most impressive waterfalls but nominated and inscribed in separately.

    Transboundary and serial transnational property inscription in the List symbolizes the international efforts to safeguard our common heritage, but we are still in the middle of the road to the final goal to achieve.

Table  Transboudary and Serial Transnational Properties inscribed in the World Heritage List