With this thesis, I take a critical look at the UNESCO World Heritage Convention and its mission to foster international unity through the creation of World Heritage Sites. The World Heritage Convention was created with good intentions, but in attempting to actualize its original objectives, the Convention has strayed from its goals. By looking at the events leading up to the creation of the World Heritage Convention, the Convention itself, and the various measures carried out by the Convention since its creation, it is clear that the UNESCO World Heritage Convention still has work to do to achieve its utopian goals. The International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia in the 1960s became the cornerstone of the Convention’s activities, but the international cooperation and sense of community that occurred during this Campaign should have been carried through into the Convention’s activities afterward. The Convention has adopted several changes intended to better its operations and definition of “universal value,” but there is still much to be desired. After reviewing the opinions of several scholars on how to make the Convention more inclusive and universal, I suggest several of my own solutions that I believe will create a positive impact on the World Heritage Convention and help return it to its original goals
