The world urgently needs an international protection instrument for its traditional cultural expressions (TCE) of folklore, given the numerous disputes among counties over the matter, a heritage conference has heard.
Speaking at the World Heritage Cities (WHC) conference here Monday, Simon Legrand of the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said his office had for eight years discussed and developed possible instruments for the protection of TCEs of folklore.
"Yet political consideration remains as to what legal status and future process are needed to carry this forward," said Legrand, counselor of WIPO's Traditional Creativity and Cultural Expressions Section, Global IP Issues Division.
The discussions so far, he went on, were not conclusive. Many options remain on the table, including on whether the organization's 184 member states would agree to adopt an international binding instrument to prevent illegitimate claims to folklore being submitted by third parties that do not own the folklore in question.
"This is an ongoing process. I therefore would like to make a plea in this conference to support the process," Legrand said, calling on WIPO member states to speed up work and ensure a concrete result could be achieved.
A protection instrument, he said, was necessary to prevent the misappropriation and misuse of folklore. He said numerous disputes had emerged between countries claiming to be the rightful owners of the same folklore.
WIPO could not intervene in such disputes, Legrand added.
"We don't have the authority to do so. But if a country feels that it is harmed by the decision of another country, both should talk in order to solve the problem. This would be the position of WIPO in such a situation," he said.
Indonesian speaker Achmad Zen Umar Purba concurred that what WIPO was working on would be the main solution to such problems.
"But informal meetings like the one we are having today, could also contribute an important role to such issues," Purba said.
Some 450 participants attended Monday's conference that saw keynote addresses from Rieks Smeets, first secretary of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, and Eugenio Yunis, program and coordination director of the World Tourism Organization.
The conference was part of the weeklong WHC conference and expo, which runs from Saturday until Thursday.
At the city's Mangkunegaran Principality Palace, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hasan Wirajuda officially opened a three-day WHC expo and workshop involving 37 of 39 member states of the Organization of WHC's (OWHC) Euro-Asia division.
In his opening address, Hasan expressed hope the event would not only make relations among heritage cities closer, but also improve mutual understanding for future cooperation in trade and investment.
"These events have provided a unique opportunity for governments, businesses and communities from different cities in the world to work together to create innovations on the basis of their rich and diverse heritage," he said.
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