No I don't have the date of signing. Will try to add the others you suggested.

Thanks for finding the errors! Now I have something to do over the weekend.

The Australian Goverment has given an indication of where they'd like to take the WHC. http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/about/world-heritage. No surprises:

"During our 2017 – 2021 term, Australia will work to strengthen the operation of the Committee, placing emphasis on the effective management of existing properties, and encouraging greater geographic balance in the list and more focus on listing natural places of Outstanding Universal Value.

Australia will continue to be an active contributor to the policy and technical work that underpins the integrity of the World Heritage Convention. We will work to place the World Heritage system on a stable financial foundation and work to enhance the World Heritage brand."

A few more -
1977 – Curr 14 – all correct
1978 – Curr 13 – add Ghana to make 14
1979 – Curr 13 - add Alg, Arg, Gha, Iraq, Nigeria, Sud, Switz and Tun. Remove Serb to make 20
1980 – Curr 20 – add Iran and remove Serb to leave at 20
1981 - Curr 18 – add DRC, Pan, Sen to make 21
1982 – Curr 21 – all correct
1983 - Curr 16 - Seems better to start from scratch! Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, France, Germany, Guinea, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Libya, Nepal, Pakistan, Panama, Senegal, Switzerland, Tunisia, United States of America. to give 21

Leaves 1984 -87 to look at

1999 has a couple of mistakes as well - Zimbabwe is counted twice. Needs a full check

Changed those too now. Unfortunately the Unesco website seems to be down now, so I can not do the remaining years and check who was Chair, Rapporteur etc.

There are errors at the Unesco website as well. For 1983, Algeria is named as Vice Chair while it is not among the members (Argentina is).
We might have to look at the original documents as well for these conflicting years. For 1983, Bulgaria and DRC for example weren't members.

(Fortunately the unesco website is up and running again)

UNESCO website is wrong on 1984 too. The data on our website is equal to those in the Report of the session.

Maybe our data was better all the way, because we took it originally from the session documents?
@Assif, do you remember? Sounds like something you supplied.

Yes -there are a number of inconsistencies which will need working through for the early years.
I had expected that the Operational Guidelines (OGs) might at least clarify the question of how many members we should be expecting the WHC to have - I know that it has increased during its existence. In fact The OG's don't specify.
The official number is apparently shown only in the Convention text itself.
Article 8 states
"An Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of the Cultural and Natural Heritage of Outstanding Universal Value, called "the World Heritage Committee", is hereby established within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It shall be composed of 15 States Parties to the Convention, elected by States Parties to the Convention meeting in general assembly during the ordinary session of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The number of States members of the Committee shall be increased to 21 as from the date of the ordinary session of the General Conference following the entry into force of this Convention for at least 40 States."

So - we should be expecting either 15 or 21 to !attend" - unless of course there were some years when one or more of the delegations didn't turn up. But, in such cases they would still be "Members" of the WHC (would expect a comment/apology as well??). But when exactly did the number need to rise from 15 to 21?

And I find a mistake in the UNESCO web site list right from the start for 1977
http://whc.unesco.org/en/sessions/01COM
Committee Members - Australia, Canada, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Germany, Ghana, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Nigeria, Poland, Senegal, Tunisia, United States of America.
Which is only 14. The actual list of Participants includes 15 with Yugoslavia being the additional one not shown on the UNESCO Web site - it was on the next page and obviously whoever set up the Web site didn't turn over!!

The same mistake has been made for 1978 - Yugoslavia is again missing from the Web site list - when included there were 15 WHC members
The list of retirees for the next 3 years was also given -
"The terms of office of these States extend as follows :
- until the end of the 1978 General Conference of Unesco - Canada, Federal Republic of Germany, Poland, Senegal ;
- until the end of the 1980 General Conference of Unesco - Ghana, Iran, Nigeria, Yugoslavia ;
- until the end of the 1982 General Conference of Unesco -Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia, United States."

The 1978 General Assembly includes a item for electing a new WHC - "The Chairman explained to the General Assembly the procedure to be followed for the election of members of the Committee. As a result of the increase in the number of States having ratified or accepted the Convention, the number of members of the Committee would be increased from 15 to 21. It would therefore be necessary to elect, on the one hand, five members to replace the five members whose term of office was to expire at the end of the 20th session of the General Conference and, on the other hand, six new members whose term of office would be decided by drawing lots"
See - http://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/6601/

BUT - it then states that 5 replacements were needed by election to replace the 5 "retirees" and 6 additional members were required to achieve the increase from 15 to 21. But there were only supposed to be 4 retirees from the 15 (Can, Ger, Pol, Sen) ????
However the "new" 11 were - Arg, Alg, Bul, Fr, Ital, Nep, Pan, Sen, Switz (Fr/Pan/It/Pak and Arg by election, Alg, Sud, Bul, Nep, Sen and Switz by lots)
EXCEPT that this 11 includes Senegal who was also supposed to be a "retiree" and France who was already on and wasn't supposed to be retiring?!!

The 1979 minutes then list ONLY the following WHC 13 members as "attending"- Austral, Bul, Ecu, Egy, Fr, Iran, It, Nep, Pak, Pan, Swit, USA and Yug.
Now this is clearly a mixture of both some of those who were on the 1978 WHC and some of those who were added at the Assembly
To confuse matters further the Web site lists 20 WHC members - http://whc.unesco.org/en/sessions/03COM
- Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Ghana, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Italy, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Senegal, Sudan, Switzerland, Tunisia, United States of America.
Yugoslavia is the ONLY one of this "list of 13" attendees which is NOT also on the "List of 20"
Can, Ger and Pol have "disappeared" as planned and Senegal remains on the "List of 20" (but not on the "List of 13") as was implied by its "re-election.

To complicate matters further the minutes of the 1980 meeting list as attendees
Alg,Arg, Austral, Bul, Ecu, Egy, Fr, Gha, Iraq, It, Nep, Nigeria, Pak, Pan, Sen Sud, Swit, Tun, USA and Yugoslavia (Back again!!) - ie 20
Whislt the Web site lists also 20 but a different one!! (See http://whc.unesco.org/en/sessions/04COM )
Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Ghana, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Italy, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Senegal, Sudan, Switzerland, Tunisia, United States of America - ie missing Yugosavia

My judgement would be that the OFFICIAL WHC for 1979 and 80 DID consist of 21 States Parties covering ALL those countries appearing across the 4 different lists of Attendees and "members" (but NEVER on all of them!!) - this because there was no change across those years
Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Ghana, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Italy, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Senegal, Sudan, Switzerland, Tunisia, United States of America, Yugosavia

No, I didn't supply that.

Have had a look at this in a bit more detail
There is no doubt that
a. The Session report only lists 17 WHC members as attending
b. The UNESCO Web site lists 21 members for that year (WHC held in Oct/Nov 84) - Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, France, Germany, Guinea, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malawi, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Turkey

So - how could the difference occur? Either -
a. There were not in fact 21 members even though the procedures provide for there to be so and that the Web site list was wrong (it could of course also be correct in total numbers but incorrect in the exact composition}
b. Some WHS members didn't turn up or were not recorded as being present. (The missing ones as between the 2 lists were - DRC, Jordan, Malawi and Sri Lanka)

I have checked the next occasion when the WHC membership was discussed -The General Assembly of 4 Nov 1985 held in Sofia.
That lists 7 members as "retiring" - Argentina, France, Italy, Pakistan, Panama, Senegal and Switzerland.
and lists the 7 added - Bulg, Canada, Greece, India, Mexico, Tanzania and Yemen.

I then looked at the WHC membership which attended the 1985 WHC held in Dec 85 in Paris
a. The UNESCO Web site lists it as consisting of the following 21 - Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Cyprus, DRC/Zaire, France, Germany, Guinea, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malawi, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Turkey
b. The Session report lists 20 as attending - the above 21 LESS Malawi

The 2 UNESCO web site lists for 1984 and 1985 are fully consistent with the retirements and additions made at the General Assembly - all are accounted for in the 1985 List and the only member missing from both "attendee lists" is Malawi.

As far as I can see, Malawi continues to fail to turn up but eventually reaches the end of its WHC membership period after the 1988 WHC and is mentioned in the 1989 General Assembly WHC election agenda item!! See -
http://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/6541/

It may seem incredible now that WHC members wouldn't turn up but that seems to have been the case in the early/mid 1980s - it is noticeable just how few "other" attendees there were at those WHC's as well - the 21 WHC members represented a fairly large %age of the total list of State Parties.

I feel we should record "Membership" rather than "Attendees" - provided we can "reconcile" the sources as being logical. That also guards against the (Unlikely?) possibility that the list of Attendees was incorrect and that e,g little Malawi was actually there all the time but never "contributed" and got missed out in the records!

Countries no longer on the World Heritage Committee in BOLD.

Angola, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Burkina Faso, China, Cuba, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Norway, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Spain, Tunisia, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Zimbabwe

Countries elected to the World Heritage Committee in BOLD.

Australia, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Mali, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Spain, Thailand, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Uganda.

The following 9 States Parties will be outgoing in 2023:

Egypt, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Oman, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand

https://whc.unesco.org/en/sessions/24GA

Submitted Candidatures:

Gabon
Jamaica
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Republic of Korea
Senegal
Türkiye
Ukraine

Based on the CORRUPTION PERCEPTIONS INDEX the new candidates are slightly less corrupt than the outgoing group. In addition, the Republic of Korea and Ukraine on the World Heritage Committee may lead to interesting decisions/discussions around Sado Gold Mine (Japan's planned nomination for 2024) and regarding Odessa's potential for an expedited nomination. Japan is already on the World Heritage Committee and will remain so until 2025. This will be Ukraine's first time on the Committee.