Official Announcement from UNESCO

https://whc.unesco.org/en/sessions/45COM/?fbclid=IwAR2ovH4F1iYOGnvVknQkZyUSDptIeQe-0oPdQDTM1Ur3ntVWcNyeUkNbDnI

We can expect all documents to still be published as planned, if I am not mistaken May 6th?

I don't read it that way.
"dates of the dispatches of statutory documents for the 45th session of the World Heritage Committee will be established, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, at the appropriate time."
The "appropriate time" according to the "Rules of Procedure" is in Rule 45 of those rules
"Rule 45. Deadline for distribution of documents
The documents relating to the items on the Provisional Agenda of each session of the Committee shall be distributed at the latest six weeks before the beginning of the session"

So - they MUST be distributed "at the latest" 6 weeks before whenever the WHC is rescheduled to??
But that doesn't preclude them from being published BEFORE that date!!!
So - this page for the documents of the 45th WHC states "Relevant documents regarding the session will be put online as soon as they become available"

So - as per the RULES - there would seem no particular reason why e.g Advisory Body reports should not still be published "as soon as they become available" - as they were presumably working to the original "6 weeks before" deadline then they could still be made available according to that original deadline?? On the other hand they, and any other documents for the meeting, do not HAVE to be made available until 6 weeks before whenever the rescheduled date might be!! We will just have to await May 6 and see what gets published then - but also accepting that it might be nothing!!!

Can anyone remember/discover exactly what happened regarding the publication of documents for the originally scheduled 44th WHC (2020) which was postponed because of Covid? I found this relating to the matter published by IUCN which seems to indicate that publication in that case WAS postponed until the date of the next WHC had been determined - at which point the 6 week rule came into play based on the new date.

If I remember well, they were released just in May 2021, so right before the double session. So I am also not optimistic about their publication this year. The "appropriate time" is postponed, too.

It's May 9 now, and no documents have been published. I am afraid that we have to wait until a new date for the WHC has been determined and that the documents will only be made public 6 weeks before that new date.

In the meantime, I did stumble upon the nomination file of:

Likely to be inscribed I think.

I'm happy about Kaunas being inscribed it gives me a reason to return to Lithuania, which I really enjoyed.

Also who doesn't love modernist architecture*

*unfortunately I know this statement to be ironic :|

meltwaterfalls

Hey, I liked it a lot, especially the post office and the double museum! :-D I also like this site, and am trusting the commissions for the evaluation of its OUV ;-)

I can't understand why it's so complicated to organize the session somewhere else

Still no news on the 2022 session? This waiting is unbearable.

I am getting the impression the session will not be held this year. Korean stakeholders involved with the Gaya Tumuli nomination mentioned in a recent article that their expectation is that there will be no new inscriptions decided until early next year. I am not sure how accurate this information is though.

Same idea here.

We have anyway become accustomed to having inscriptions only every 2 years :(

I have put myself in standby since some months and just had to come to terms that we will have to wait a good year. But then we will have double inscriptions! 🎉 I see it also as a motivation to look more after TWHSs. :-P Beyond all of this, I see this situation as an interesting reminder that international diplomacy is extremely complex and that not the whole world is aligned with the prevalent politics of around here. An interesting reversal of the usual perspective.

But as someone said here, is there really a possibility that the session will become biennial?

UK ambassador to UNESCO has this afternoon posted that:

"Today's #WorldHeritageCommittee Bureau meeting failed to reach a decision to move #WHC45 out of Russian chairmanship despite the continuous destruction of cultural heritage across Ukraine

The reputation of the @UNESCO #WHC is at stake"

I guess this means that the 2022 Committee will not be progressing in any meaningful way.

"Deputy Culture Minister Rimantas Mikaitis says that Russia's chairmanship "will not necessarily end this year", because Lithuania and like-minded nations do not have enough support from other countries to remove Russia from the committee."

"The situation remains at a stalemate if Russia does not agree to step down as chair and there is no critical mass of committee members willing to make a change," Mikaitis said, noting that "Europeans are in a significant minority there and the war in Ukraine is not as important to countries further away from Europe".

"The situation may move to next year. It is difficult to predict what the final decision will be," the vice-minister said.

"It does not seem likely," he said when when asked if it would be realistic to expect Russia to be excluded from the UNESCO committee.

https://www.baltictimes.com/no_decision_on_kaunas__unesco_heritage_bid_if_russia_stays_on_committee___minister/

The UN General Assembly passed a resolution by a large majority on Wednesday, calling on countries not to recognise the four regions of Ukraine which Russia has claimed, following so-called referendums held late last month, and demanding that Moscow reverse course on its "attempted illegal annexation".

The results were 143 Member States in favour, with five voting against, and 35 abstentions. The countries who voted against were Belarus, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Nicaragua, Russia and Syria.

WHC Bureau by Vote:

Yes (15)
Argentina, Belgium, Bulgaria, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Rwanda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Zambia

No (1)
Russian Federation

Abstention (5)
Ethiopia, India, Mali, South Africa, Thailand

I am not sure if this signals any change in how the WHC Bureau might vote regarding the current "UNESCO Chair" impasse, but I thought it worth noting.