UNESCO Cultural Heritage and Global Commons

The WHC provisions provide an important contribution to the debate on ‘common goods’ (or ‘commons’), in which legal scholars specialized in sever al fields have been involved. As is widely known, WHC was adopted in order to safeguard and preserve cultural and natural heritage and to ensure its preservation for future generations (see article 4). The link between present and future generations as well as the general concept of cultural heritage of mankind, that inspires the WHC, is also at the heart of the concept of ‘common goods’ as generally held by legal theory. The concept of ‘common goods’ is rather controversial because it does not have a definition in the current law. Furthermore, theoretically, it in cludes a large and heterogeneous number of goods (both material and non-material, as well as urban spaces, etc). While there is not yet consensus on a legal definition of ‘commons’, legal scholarship agrees on the point that certain goods are actually vital to meet collective needs. Indeed, despite the variety of approaches and theories offered by both scholars and case-law, it is generally accepted that com mons are neither public nor private goods and that their classification depends on their usefulness for satisfying both individual fundamental rights and communities’ interests. Taking as a starting point the relevant WHC provisions, the proposed chapter will discuss – from a private law perspective – the theoretical notion of ‘common goods’ and its possible impact on cultural and natural heritage understanding and preservation.