Twelve new members elected to World Heritage Committee

On 19 November, representatives of the 190 States Parties to the 1972 World Heritage Convention elected 12 new members to the 21-member intergovernmental Committee in charge of managing UNESCO’s World Heritage List and implementing the Convention.

The new members of the World Heritage Committee, elected for four years, are: Croatia, Finland, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Turkey, Viet Nam.
They join nine other countries whose term on the Committee expires in 2015: Algeria, Colombia, Germany, India, Japan, Malaysia, Qatar, Senegal, Serbia.

The Committee meets once a year to review the state of conservation of World Heritage sites and inscribe new ones on the List which today numbers 981 sites in 160 countries. The World Heritage List includes 759 cultural, 193 natural and 29 mixed properties.

The election took place on the first day of the 19^th General Assembly of States Parties to the World Heritage Convention, meeting from 19 to 21 November in Paris, at UNESCO Headquarters.