Advising States Parties (Nominations)

IUCN directly supports and advises States Parties in the early stages of World Heritage engagement through the Upstream Process. The Upstream Process serves as tool in facilitating access to the World Heritage Convention processes and reducing challenges encountered during the evaluations of nominations.

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Advising States Parties (Nominations) Expert reviewers for nominations IUCN World Heritage Panel

Since the introduction of the formal Upstream Process in 2010, IUCN has advised States Parties on processes prior to the submission of a World Heritage nomination. This includes advice on the revision of national Tentative lists (the earliest stage of the World Heritage nominations process) and of the potential of sites to demonstrate Outstanding Universal Value- now the formal Preliminary Assessment process.

Thematic Studies: Finding the Gaps

IUCN regularly conducts and updates thematic studies to help States Parties and interested stakeholders assess the potential for nominating candidate sites to the World Heritage List. These include frameworks and general guidance, analyses of possible gaps by type of ecosystem, analysis of possible gaps by region. All resources are available here.

Tentative List Support: Screening for Candidate Sites

The 2020 Guidance on Developing and Revising World Heritage Tentative Lists prepared by ICOMOS, in collaboration with IUCN, provides widely applicable guidance on the process and the assistance that the Advisory Bodies could provide.

Our resource manual on Preparing World Heritage Nominations  outlines the underlying principles that underpin a good nomination in phase II.

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Preliminary Assessment

The adoption of Preliminary Assessment represents the most significant amendment since the Convention was adopted in 1972. Preliminary Assessment is an independent, desk-based review process (conducted by IUCN for natural and mixed requests), that will become mandatory as of 2027 as the first phase of the nomination process.

Preliminary Assessment provides an opportunity for enhanced and early dialogue between IUCN and the States Parties and is intended to provide targeted specialist advice to assist States Parties in preparing robust nominations in phase II for sites that hold potential to demonstrate Outstanding Universal Value.

The evaluation of Preliminary Assessment requests capitalises on IUCN’s international and diverse network of experts and our final recommendations are determined through the Joint ICOMOS-IUCN Preliminary Assessment Panel (which meets in May-July each year).