Proposed amendments to the Statutes of ICOMOS - 3rd consultation of the members - complete
All ICOMOS members were invited to participate in the last steps of the current process to update the ICOMOS Statutes, which are the constitution of our organisation. This process was presented at the recent meetings of the Advisory and Executive Committees in San Jose, Costa Rica, last October. We thank you for your contributions. At this time, the consultation has come to a close.
This work is to be completed in time to provide formal proposals in 2014 to the upcoming General Assembly in the form of amendments to the current Statutes, which were adopted in 1978 in Moscow, and review of the Ethical Commitment Statement, which was adopted in 2002 in Madrid. This is actually the third such general consultation and it is particularly important since it will serve to finalise these proposals prior to the next General Assembly.
The current proposals have been prepared by a dedicated working group formed in compliance with the resolutions of the General Assembly in 2011. Their aim is to ensure that our Statutes comply with current legislation. They also aim at providing ICOMOS with a structure, operating processes and shared ethical values that will enable it to fully play its vanguard role as the world’s largest non-governmental interdisciplinary organisation serving the conservation of sites, monuments, ensembles or landscapes in their tangible and intangible cultural heritage values.
For the Statutes, the proposed modifications include the following subjects:
- Definition of cultural heritage in ICOMOS’s activities
- Categories and conditions of membership
- Constitution and activity of national and international committees
- Duration of the period between General Assemblies
- Reform of the current Executive Committee and Officers’ duties
- Elections of the ICOMOS leadership
- Voting rights and their attribution
In the case of the Ethical Commitment Statement, the working group has mostly proposed adjustments to the language to make it more in tone with comments received from members and Committees, and consistent with the proposed amendments to the Statutes.
You can download the reports of the working group on the Statutes and access the archive of documents related to this important process on the dedicated members-only web page - see rubric "Amendment of the Statutes and Ethical Committment Statement" (go to 3rd consultation).
ICOMOS is an organisation of vast and diverse expertise created to promote collegial discussion. In this spirit, we strongly encourage members and committees of ICOMOS to examine these proposals in a collegial way, share the understanding of the issues and proposals, and bring us comments and suggestions. Just as for the previous two general consultations, all comments and suggestions received will be taken into consideration as the working group, in cooperation with the Executive Committee, finalises its proposals.
The calendar for this process is rather tight considering the current statutory obligations and deadlines to communicate the final proposals prior to the upcoming 18th ICOMOS General Assembly in Florence. At this time, all contributions have been received by the ICOMOS International Secretariat and the consultation has come to a close.
In the name of our colleagues from the working group, we thank you for your contribution to this important work which we hope will help ICOMOS grow to better face the ever more complex challenges of conservation in a quickly changing world.
Dinu Bumbaru
member of the Executive Committee and
co-chair of the Working Group on Statutes