Intangible Cultural Heritage: From Concept to Practice

Abstract: From the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage adopted in 1972 to the Convention for the Protection of the Intangible Cultural Heritage adopted in 2003, with the unremitting efforts of UNESCO, the international community has carried out long-term exploration of oral/intangible/intangible cultural heritage, especially the functions and values of cultural expression and popular practice.

Behind this 30-year process, people's understanding, attention and consensus on "human heritage", especially "intangible cultural heritage", have also deepened with the continuous expansion of the conceptualization process.

Therefore, from concept to practice, looking back on the unremitting efforts made by the international community and relevant academic circles, there are also many issues worthy of consideration and attention by our scholars in social sciences and humanities.

2.

Intangible Cultural Heritage: The Origin of the Concept 3.

Cultural Expressions: Folklore Protection and Evolution of Concepts On the occasion of its commemoration of the Seventh Decade, UNESCO released the "UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Important Working Dates" through its website, which specifically mentions the 1973 proposal by the Bolivian government to add a Protocol on the Protection of Folklore to the Universal Copyright Convention.

In fact, the move was not successful, but it directly triggered a series of initiatives to protect intangible heritage within the framework of UNESCO's work.

When Professor Hang Ke talked about this "protocol", he said humorously that there was also a "true and false 'rumor'" behind it: in 1970, a single by American singer Paul Simon became popular in the world, and people soon discovered that this song called "The Eagles Are Flying" was actually a Bolivian folk song (some later claimed that this folk song was circulated throughout South America).

Since the success of records has brought huge economic benefits to the "author", people believe that at least part of the profits should be returned to the hometown of folk songs.

This "rumor" is actually true and has been recorded as the 13th note in Sherkin's report.

Hang Ke turned to point out very seriously that the copyright issue of folk traditions and the differences arising between them do dominate the direction of the entire plan, because it is not only related to the cultural uniqueness and creativity of many former colonial countries, but also related to the economic development of traditional folk customs in developed countries.

This often transcends the local context of traditional culture and infringes on the interests of the communities and groups to which the traditional culture belongs, while the misinterpretation of expression or representation disparages the groups that maintain this tradition.

Hurts people's cultural identity and values.

4.

Cultural Space: Expansion of local positions and concepts.

To be fair, in the 30-year arduous journey between the World Heritage Convention and the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention, the "Proposal" has connected the past and the next.

A bridge of great significance and far-reaching influence.

Although the recommendation is non-binding ("soft law"), it is an international guideline formulated by UNESCO.

In the long-term debate, it has become a call to amend the already adopted "Recommendation" or to brew a new legal means.

Delegates strongly called for the development of a new document or the revision of existing documents at least on issues such as the scope and definition of intangible cultural heritage, and emphasized the central role of intangible cultural heritage holders (creators and practitioners).

Robyne Bancroft said at the 1999 evaluation meeting that the "Proposal" has a "missing tooth"[meaning "sharp weapon"] and should be filled in; that is, to form an international convention promulgated by UNESCO.

After this meeting, UNESCO began to prepare a new guideline document to study the feasibility of regulating "the protection of traditional culture and folklore" at the international level.

Before the promulgation of the Convention, this recommendation was the only international legal document on intangible cultural heritage, and it attracted the attention of many countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region.

Even after the adoption of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention, this important document with folklore as the key word has not completely withdrawn from the stage of "human heritage".

In the 2005 working guide for Member States to apply for the third batch of "representative works", the "Recommendation", as "Annex 3", is still an important reference for the entire operating framework.

Even in the provisions of the Convention, the purpose and spirit of the "Recommendation" can be seen.

What has changed is only the technical terminology and terminology.

Therefore, it can be believed that the word "folklore" was quietly "eliminated" from the text of the Convention mainly to circumvent the various disputes caused by the word.

This is because through long-term debate, most people have clarified the negative connotations of the word "folk custom", so they regard it as a difficult term and reach a consensus: first, it will be left to any new legal document in the future to make necessary definitions.

Amendments, and second, before consensus is reached, if there is no appropriate term to replace, it can only continue to be used in academic concepts.

5.

From "Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" to "Intangible Cultural Heritage": The definition towards openness In addition, it should be mentioned that the copyright system and neighboring rights system are not suitable for protecting the expression of "folklore and artistic expressions"(expression of folklore) This specific intellectual achievement prompted UNESCO and WIPO to renew their consensus, end the debate, and work together to establish a practical legislative protection model.

To sum up, it means promoting "protection" from two comprehensive and concrete dimensions, each of which can realize its potential as an intergovernmental organization: on the one hand, it adopts comprehensive and systematic protection measures, and on the other hand, it adopts special legislation to build a specific rights system related to intellectual property rights (IP-related sui generis).

The former has been reflected in the Recommendations and Conventions launched by UNESCO before and after; the latter still uses WIPO as the leading force, with UNESCO fully cooperating, and continues to promote the establishment of lex specialis with the joint efforts of relevant member states.

WIPO's work mainly follows its mission, focusing on traditional cultural expressions in the sense of intellectual property and their "protection"(WIPO/GRTKF/IC/7/3).

It is reported that this work has made substantial progress within WIPO's organizational framework.

The Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC), established in 2000, held a meeting in Geneva from November 30 to December 8, 2006.

Agreement was reached on new approaches to work on the protection of intellectual property rights and traditional knowledge (TK) and traditional cultural expressions (TCEs)[17].

In addition, the expression of Article 9 of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights also applies to the intellectual property protection of traditional culture by various countries.

my country's "Copyright Law" revised in 2001 is also a tentative practice of using copyright law to protect folk literature; after joining the "Convention", the "Draft Law on the Protection of Ethnic and Folk Traditional Culture" formulated by my country has also been officially renamed "Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Law", the draft of which has been submitted to the State Council.