Aventuras y desventuras de una hermosa convención internacional

While the principle of an international convention to safeguard the intangible cultural heritage is no longer seriously challenged by anyone, despite the hesitations that led to its elaboration, the first ten years of its implementation has yet to find its ‘comfort’ position. Beyond the safeguarding objectives and the centrality of communities of practitioners in the process of identification and safeguarding, there are still many difficulties in the implementation of the Convention. The article focuses mainly on international implementation, particularly inscriptions on the lists, illustrating how the governance of the Convention, as well as the nomination and inscription process and the use of lists sometimes run the risk of deviating from the very spirit of this normative instrument, which has opened up a new and highly innovative horizon in heritage discourse.