A Study on Japan’s Plans and Responses to the Implementation of International Level for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage under the UNESCO 2003 Convention-Focusing on the List of Representatives of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity-

The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, adopted by the thirty-second UNESCO General Assembly in October 2003, implements a procedure for inscriptions to the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding at the international level. The Intergovernmental Committee of the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which is in charge of deciding nominations, began to inscribe elements on the lists from 2009 after drafting the Operational Directives for implementing the Convention. Meanwhile, in December 2007, Japan established a special committee at the Cultural Heritage Subcommittee of the Cultural Council under the Cultural Affairs Agency and adopted strategic plans related to inscribing on the lists.This paper analyzes the procedure of inscribing on the lists of the Convention along with a review of the strategic responses in Japan to examine the characteristics of the Japanese intangible cultural heritage safeguarding system and changes in its policies.The summary of Japan’s strategic responses to implementing the Convention follows. First, the national lists submitted to the Secretariat of the Convention are Important Intangible Cultural Properties, Important Intangible Folk Cultural Properties, and Selected Conservation Techniques. Second, the nomination files for inscription are submitted sequentially in the order of designation and selection of national lists. Third, for the time being, Japan has not submitted for the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, in which international assistance is needed.In the text, we will see that strategic responses have not changed much in principle, but the application process has evolved amid international variables such requested restrictions on the number of nominations for examination and domestic social and political issues caused by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. There have been three major trends in Japanese inscriptions to the Convention lists over the past decade.The first was to inscribe sequentially in the order of designation or selection on national lists. However, the initial plans were disrupted due to the nomination file cap implemented at the Secretariat’s request. Therefore, opportunities for Japan, which has already secured many inscriptions, have been limited.Based on these limitations, a second inscription trend is needed, and Japan is currently promoting attempts to integrate similar elements and inscribe them on an expanded basis. The first inscription was washi, the craftsmanship of traditional Japanese handmade paper, which was inscribed in the 2014 cycle. Japan applied for the inscription by integrating three elementshonminoshi, which was previously inscribed; sekishu-banshi, which was suspended from inscription; and hosogawashi, which has not yet been nominated. Since then, Japan has continued to integrate similar elements.The third trend is the inscription of the elements in the life-culture category triggered by the inscription of washoku, traditional dietary cultures of the Japanese in 2013, which resulted in establishing new systems called “registered intangible cultural properties” and “registered intangible folk cultural properties” in the Japanese cultural property protection system. Japan, which diagnosed that the existing intangible cultural property protection system was limited to performance and craft techniques and did not show the diversity of traditional Japanese culture, added intangible cultural properties related to living culture as a new category but applied the registration system instead of the designation system.