Legal and institutional domestication of the 2003 UNESCO Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage in South Korea

This study examines the legal and institutional changes that have occurred in the Republic of Korea since 2005 in response to the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Since 1962, the Republic of Korea has designated and protected intangible cultural properties, with the system initially established through the implementation of the Cultural Property Protection Act. The legal framework, which had remained largely unaltered since 1962, underwent a substantial revision in 2016 and was transformed into the National Heritage Act in 2024. This study will examine the characteristics of the intangible cultural property system under the regime of the 1962 Cultural Property Protection Act. It will then analyse legal and institutional modifications that have occurred within the 1962 Act system since 2005. It will demonstrate that these changes were the consequence of an initiative to accept the unfamiliar concept of the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in parallel with the existing concept of intangible cultural property.