World Heritage law, Indigenous Peoples, and the nature–culture divide: Reconciling criteria with emerging practice

Abstract

Abstract The 1972 World Heritage Convention is one of the world’s most widely adopted treaties, providing for the international protection of world cultural and natural heritage that is of outstanding universal value to humankind. While the treaty has enjoyed some significant successes in the protection of heritage around the world, the criteria for assessing and inscribing cultural and natural properties create significant obstacles to meaningful engagement with and recognition of Indigenous relationships with land. Indigenous Peoples have argued that the separation of cultural and natural heritage under the convention is artificial and reifies a problematic nature/culture dichotomy that is inconsistent with the inseparable relationship between Indigenous Peoples, culture, and their lands and waters. Adopting the frame of political ontology, this article explores tensions between Indigenous ontological assertions and the current operation of the World Heritage Convention. The article examines the case study of the Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage property, showing how the World Heritage Advisory Bodies are working to improve engagement with Indigenous ontologies, despite barriers created by inscription criteria. Finally, the article provides pathways forward for a more meaningful and holistic recognition of Indigenous Peoples in World Heritage through amendments to criteria to align with emerging practice.