World Heritage and Human Rights : Lessons from the Asia-Pacific and Global Arena

The World Heritage community is currently adopting policies to mainstream human rights as part of a wider sustainability agenda. This interdisciplinary book combines a state of the art review of World Heritage policy and practice at the global level with ethnographic case studies from the Asia-Pacific region by leading scholars in the field. By joining legal reviews, anthropology and practitioner experience through in-depth case studies, it shows the diversity of human rights issues in both natural and cultural heritage sites.

From site-designation to their conservation and management, the book explores the various rights issues and analyses the diverse social, cultural and legal challenges and responses at both regional and global level. Detailed case studies are included from Australia, Cambodia, China, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines and Vietnam. The book will appeal to both natural and cultural heritage professionals and human rights and heritage scholars, and will serve as a useful compendium for courses use allowing students to compare, contrast and contextualize different contexts.

Peter Bille Larsen lectures in Anthropology, International Governance, Heritage Studies and Development Studies at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland. He has a strong interest in the intersection between conservation and social equity, including work in the fields of indigenous rights, World Heritage policy, human rights, as well as the anthropology of international politics.