The European Journal of International Law Vol. 22 no. 1 copy; EJIL 2011; all rights reserved

Intangible Cultural Heritage: The Living Culture of Peoples

Federico Lenzerini*

Abstract

Intangible cultural heritage (ICH), made up of all immaterial manifestations of culture, represents the variety of living heritage of humanity as well as the most important vehicle of cultural diversity. The main lsquo;constitutive factorsrsquo; of ICH are represented by the lsquo;self- identificationrsquo; of this heritage as an essential element of the cultural identity of its creators and bearers; by its constant recreation in response to the historical and social evolution of the communities and groups concerned; by its connection with the cultural identity of these communities and groups; by its authenticity; and by its indissoluble relationship with human rights. The international community has recently become conscious that ICH needs and deserves international safeguarding, triggering a legal process which culminated with the adoption in 2003 of the UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. This Convention correctly highlights the main elements of ICH and is based on the right philosophical rationale, but its operational part – structured on the model provided by the 1972 World Heritage Convention – appears to be inadequate to ensure appropriate safe- guarding of the specificities of intangible heritage. This article argues that to correct such in- adequacy, international safeguarding of ICH must rely on the concomitant application, even though in an indirect manner, of international human rights law, for the reason that ICH represents a component of cultural human rights and an essential prerequisite to ensure the actual realization and enjoyment of individual and collective rights of its creators and bearers.

1 Introduction. Intangible Cultural Heritage: Our Living Heritage

In 1960, an influential thinker of the 20th century wrote that culture cannot be abridged to its tangible products, because it is continuously living and evolving.1

He actually caught the essence of cultural heritage, which is composed not only of tangible properties, but also and especially of the essential elements representing the living culture of human communities, their evolution, and their continuing develop- ment. Therefore, it includes all immaterial elements that are considered by a given community as essential components of its intrinsic identity as well as of its uniqueness and distinctiveness in comparison with all other human groups. In other terms, the culture of a people is composed by the totality of elements representing the very heart of its distinctive idiosyncrasy.

Until the very last decades of the 20th century this holistic perception of culture had not been adequately perceived by the international community. The main legal instruments adopted with the purpose of protecting cultural heritage, either applic- able exclusively in the event of armed conflict2 or also in time of peace,3 were solely devoted to tangible cultural expressions, the significance of which was to be evaluated on the basis of an objective and standardized perception of their artistic, aesthetic, architectural, visual, scientific, and economic value. Thanks to these instruments, this perspective, developed in the Western world, became the globalized evaluation method used by the international community as a whole in order to establish the value of cultural heritage. In meta-juridical terms, this lack of perception of the need to provide adequate safeguarding for immaterial cultural heritage was presumably the result – consciously or not – of the confidence that this heritage, being an essential part of the cultural and social identity of human communities, was automatically and appropriately preserved and developed at the local level, in the context of the social evolution of the communities concerned. In other words, the depositaries of intangible cultural heritage (IHC) were considered to accomplish spontaneously and appropri- ately the mission of transmitting to future generations the necessary knowledge to preserve and perpetuate their own immaterial heritage, with no need of any inter- national action in that respect. Although this spontaneous process could be consid- ered as having worked out fine for many centuries, its dynamics were abruptly broken by the advancement of the process of globalization which has marked the most recent decades. In fact, intensification of intercultural contacts, which in many cases has translated into cultural prevarication and the imposition of certain cultural models over others, has quickly put under threat the capacity of the oldest generations to transmit their knowledge and knowhow to the youngest.

At present, we are aware on a daily basis of the definitive loss – throughout the world – of languages, knowledge, knowhow, customs, and ideas, leading to the pro- gressive impoverishment of human society. In August 2004, at a meeting organized by UNESCO in Tokyo, the Minister of Culture, Education, Science, and the Church of Greenland, after expressing her view that lsquo;globalization is nothing but another form of

colonizationrsquo;, stressed that in her country they lsquo;have dozens of names for snow and ice because it is important to the hunters to differentiate them, but many children today know only a few of these namesrsquo;.4 This example epitomizes a process widespread in and characteristic of our contemporary world, in the context of which the cultural archetypes and interests of dominant societies globalize, to the prejudice of minority cultures, leading to cultural hegemony and uniformity at the local, national, regional, and international level. Such a process will eventually lead to the crystallization of uniform and stereotyped cultural models and

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欧洲国际法杂志第一卷 22号 1copy;EJIL 2011; 版权所有

非物质文化遗产：人民的活态文化

费德里科 · 伦策里尼*（Federico Lenzerini）

摘要：非物质文化遗产（ICH）是由文化的所有非物质表现形式构成的，它代表了人类现存遗产的多样性，是文化多样性的最重要载体。非物质文化遗产的主要“构成因素”表现为对遗产的“自我认同”，这是它的创造者和传承者文化认同的一个基本要素，主要表现为它对相关社区和群体的历史与社会演变的不断再创造，它与这些社区和群体的文化特性的联系，它的真实性和它与人权不可分割的关系。国际社会逐渐意识到非物质文化遗产需要且应该得到国际的保护，从而开启了一个新的法律进程，并最终在2003年通过了《联合国教科文组织保护非物质文化遗产公约》(UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage)。该公约基于正确的哲学原理，准确地强调了非物质文化遗产的主要内容，但是在执行过程中——以1972年《世界遗产公约》(World Heritage Convention)提供的模式为基础——似乎不能确保可以恰当地保护非物质遗产的特殊性。本文认为，要解决这一问题，非物质文化遗产的国际保护必须依赖于更好地应用，即使是间接应用国际人权法，因为非物质文化遗产是文化人权的组成部分，并且在保证实现的前提下它的创造者和持有者个人可以享受个人与集体的权利。

1简介。非物质文化遗产：我们的活态遗产

1960年，一位二十世纪有影响力的思想家写到，文化不能被简化为有形的产品，因为它正在不断地生长和发展。^[1]实际上，他抓住了文化遗产的精髓，文化遗产不仅由有形的财产组成，还由代表人类社会生存的文化、人类社会的演变和持续发展等基本要素组成。因此，它包括了所有非物质的元素，这些元素被特定的群体视为其固有身份的基本组成部分，以及相较于其他人类群体所具有的独特性和特殊性。换句话说，一个民族的文化是由代表其独特特质的所有元素构成的。

直到20世纪最后几十年，国际社会才认识到这种对文化的整体认识是不充分的。无论是在武装冲突中^[2]还是在和平时期^[3]，为保护文化遗产而通过的主要法律文书都只适用于有形的文化表现形式，它的意义将通过对其艺术价值、美学价值、建筑价值、视觉价值、科学价值和经济价值进行客观地、规范地认识来评估。由于有了这些文书，这种在西方世界发展起来的观点成为了整个国际社会用来确立文化遗产价值的全球化的评估方法。用亚法律术语来说，这种缺乏对非物质文化遗产提供恰当保护的必要性的认识，大概是有意识或无意识的结果，相信在有关社区的社会演变范围内，这种遗产作为人类社区文化和社会特性的一个重要组成部分，可以在地方被自动地、适当地保存和发展下来。换句话说，非物质文化遗产的保管人被认为是自发地、适当地完成了向后代传递必要知识以保护和传承其自身非物质遗产的使命，而无需在这方面采取任何国际行动。虽然这一自发的进程可以被认为是好几个世纪以来都顺利进展的，但作为最近几十年的标志的全球化进程的推进突然打破了它动力。事实上，跨文化接触的加强，在许多情况下已变成文化上的推诿和某些文化模式对其他文化的渗透，已迅速威胁到老一辈的人把他们的知识和技能给年轻人的能力。

目前，我们每天都能意识到全世界范围内语言、知识、技巧、风俗和观念的确定性的损失，从而导致人类社会的日益贫瘠。2004年8月，联合国教科文组织在东京举行的一次会议上，文化部长、教育部长、科学部长和格陵兰教会会长，在表达了“全球化不过是殖民化的另一种形式”的观点后，强调在她的国家“有数十种雪和冰的名字，因为对猎人来说，区分它们很重要，但是今天许多孩子只知道其中几个名字。”^[4]这个例子集中体现了一个广泛存在于我们当代世界的普遍现象和特点，在主流社会的文化原型和利益全球化的情况下，导致少数民族文化的偏见和在地方、国家、区域及国际各级的文化霸权和统一。这样的过程将导致最终产生出统一的、模式化的文化模型的结晶，以及文化多样性的语境化。

综上所述，丰富的人类文化所具有的多样性正在逐步地、危险地趋向于统一。从文化的角度来看，统一不仅意味着文化遗产的丧失（被认为是不同人类群体和社区可感知的表现形式的整体，这些表现形式已被边缘化并置于他人的支配之下），而且还将世界不同民族及其社会身份和文化身份规范成一些定型的生活方式、思维方式和感知世界的方式。文化的多样性反映了民族的多样性，这与非物质文化遗产紧密相连，因为这样的遗产是不同社区特质的生动表达。正如《联合国教科文组织世界文化多样性宣言》(UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity)^[5]第1条所强调的那样，“保护文化多样性体现在保护组成人类群体、社会的独特性和多样性中”。文化多样性作为“交流、创新和创造力的来源”，对人类至关重要，并且与非物质文化遗产的保护密不可分。相互承认和尊重文化多样性，更重要的是恰当地保护构成世界各地不同民族的非物质文化遗产，这对于促进跨文化关系的和谐至关重要，也有助于更好地欣赏和理解人类群体之间的差异。

参考文献

*意大利锡耶纳大学国际法和欧盟法教授。作者要感谢意大利佛罗伦萨欧洲大学学院的弗朗切斯科·弗兰西奥尼(Francesco Francioni)教授对本文的早期草案提出了非常有益的意见。

1见R.威廉姆斯,边境县(1960年),第11页.

2特别参见:1954年（249 UNTS 358）和1999年（38 ILM 769）的1954年《发生武装冲突时保护文化财产公约》及其两项议定书.

3尤其参见1972年《保护世界文化和自然遗产公约》(《世界遗产公约》),1037 UNTS 151.

4参见“全球化与非物质文化遗产”国际会议,日本东京,2004年第24-26届大会请访问: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001400/140090e.pdf (最后浏览日期:2010年10月6日)，页49,51。

5 2001年11月2日联合国教科文组织大会通过声明全文载于:http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13179amp;URL_DO=DO_TOPICamp;URL_SECTION=201.html(最后浏览2010年10月6日).

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