Evolution Of The Criteria To Evaluate The Outstanding Universal Value Of The World Heritage

The Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (the"Convention") adapted by UNESCO is the most popular method to protect international culture heritages. The continuous revisions of the criteria to evaluate the Outstanding Universal Value (the"OUV") of the world heritages (the"Criteria") in The Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention(the"Operational Guidelines") reflects the development of the World Heritage Movement.This paper studied the revisions of the criteria of culture heritages in the Operational Guidelines. By exploring 30 revisions of the Operational Guidelines and the background records, it illustrated the reasons, methods and effects of the revisions of the criteria and discussed the meanings and possible future revisions of the criteria. It reconsidered the lessons China can learn from this process.The essential driven factor for the revisions is the mission of UNESCO, to contribution to world peace. The direct reasons are to establish the World Heritage List (the"List"), analyze the representativeness of the List, reconsider the concept of the OUV and adapt to the special application cases from the State Parties. The influences from the specific era including the social contexts and the development of the conversation related disciplines are the extrinsic reasons for the revision.This paper broke the revision process into four periods, analyzed the influences from the above factors in each period and disclosed the consistencies among the periods. The revisions of the Criteria improved the representativeness of the List, illustrated the concept of OUV in the Convention, and expanded the definition of the culture heritage in the Convention.The OUV is endowed by human. It's relative and forever changing. The Criteria is the creative response for the issues in the specific ear from the stakeholders. It's a continuous renewal process.