The World Heritage Committee

The World Heritage Committee comprises representatives from 21 States Parties to the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage elected by the General Assembly of States Parties to the Convention.

The current composition of the Committee is as follows:

Angola, Azerbaijan, Burkina Faso, Croatia, Cuba, Finland, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Tunisia, Turkey, United Republic of Tanzania, Viet Nam, Zimbabwe.

For further information, please see: http://whc.unesco.org/en/committee/

The essential functions of the Committee are:

1. To identify, on the basis of nominations submitted by States Parties, cultural and natural properties of Outstanding Universal Value which are to be protected under the Convention, and to inscribe those properties on the World Heritage List;

2. To monitor the state of conservation of properties inscribed on the World Heritage List, in liaison with States Parties; decide which properties included in the World Heritage List are to be inscribed on or removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger; decide whether a property may be deleted from the World Heritage List;

3. To examine requests for International Assistance financed by the World Heritage Fund.

The 40th session of the World Heritage Committee will be held in Istanbul from 10 to 20 July 2016 at the Istanbul Congress Centre (ICC).