The Coordinated Protection of UNESCO Sites: Lights and Shadows of the Italian Experience

The globalisation of cultural heritage law, and, as a consequence of it, the impact of UNESCO’s treaties and activities, is increasingly evident in national cultural heritage systems. In Italy, however, the full achievement of the objectives of the Convention on the Protection of World Cultural Heritage has to face not only the variety of legal status of the asset involved, but also the fragmentation of powers between the various territorial levels which are responsible for the protection and enhancement of UNESCO sites and monuments. The coordination of these leves, and between them and the private actors, plays a fundamental role in order to balance conservation and exploitation of the sites; in this perspective, a more stronger interpretation of the obligations deriving from the UNESCO Convention should lead to a widespread application of the collaborative method in this, so essential, material sphere, as it is now believed in other spheres of public intervention where constitutional rights are at stake