Our Common Dignity – Rights-Based Approaches Working Group (OCD-RBA)
ICOMOS is dedicated to the conservation and restoration of cultural heritage in the most ethical and empowering ways possible. This is why OCD-RBA was developed, in order to put cultural rights at the heart of cultural heritage practice.
Founded in 2007, OCD-RBA was initially an ICOMOS initiative, which was expanded in 2011 in cooperation with the other Advisory Bodies to the World Heritage Convention (ICCROM and IUCN, in addition to ICOMOS), coordinated by ICOMOS Norway.
Out of this collaborative initiative, the Board of ICOMOS set up the OCD-RBA Working Group, initially consisting of members from Norway, India, South Africa and Australia. The Working Group was motivated by ICOMOS’ desire to further understanding of community engagement and rights and fully integrate this into ICOMOS’ members ethos and work.
What are Our Common Dignity – Rights-Based Approaches’ activities?
ICOMOS is a diverse organisation and the membership of the OCD-RBA working group reflects this, regularly cooperating with other bodies within ICOMOS.
From its inception, the initiative’s – and later, working group’s – main objective was to build awareness of rights issues within heritage management, including World Heritage. Central to this work is the promotion of best practices through the development of tools and guidelines. In terms of World Heritage, this integrated from the tentative list stage, through nominations to conservation and management of sites that are granted World Heritage status. This initial focus on World Heritage sites was expanded to include all types of cultural heritage.
OCD-RBA’s initiatives have included a Declaration in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as part of the 2018 ICOMOS General Assembly. During this General Assembly, in cooperation with OCD-RBA, the ICOMOS Advisory Committee adopted the Buenos Aires Declaration.
The Buenos Aires declaration encourages ICOMOS members, Committees and groups all to do the following:
- Build strong relationships with the relevant communities and peoples to their work;
- Embrace principles of free, prior and informed consent of communities before adopting measures that concern their cultural heritage;
- Offer all possible assistance to communities and rights holders, so that they may be consulted and invited to participate actively in stewardship and all stages of processes: identification, selection, classification, interpretation, development and safeguarding of cultural heritage.
At the same ICOMOS General Assembly, the OCD-RBA Working Group called on all ICOMOS Committees to showcase how they had been working on participation and cultural heritage conservation. This allowed for a better overview of the integration of rights and OCD-RBA’s work and findings into ICOMOS’ practice.
The significance of OCD-RBA’s work has been recognised, for example by the UN Special Rapporteur in the field of Cultural Rights’ 10th anniversary report.
Join the working group
The OCD-RBA working group and its task teams (Policy, Communications, Webinars and Seminars) is coordinated by Laura Robinson from ICOMOS South Africa.
Documents
You can consult a range of OCD-RBA documents, as well as details of physical publications, by clicking on the relevant links below.
Our Common Dignity – Rights-Based Approaches Working Group: history and milestones (2023)
Training Report: Heritage and Rights, African Regional Pilot Training Course, Ditsong Museum, South Africa, 13-17 March 2017 (2017)
Report on this groundbreaking African regional pilot training course on heritage and rights.Technical Report: Case Studies carried out within the ‘Our Common Dignity Initiative 2011-2016’: Rights-Based Approaches in World Heritage (Book. ICOMOS Norway, 2017)
This document summarises some of the independent case studies of ICOMOS Norway and partners as part of the Our Common Dignity initiative’s activities, offering insights and lessons.Report: The Advisory Body ‘Our Common Dignity Initiative’ on Rights-based approaches in World Heritage: Taking stock and looking forward (Book. Project Report, ICOMOS Norway, 2017)
This report presents the key results of OCD-RBA in cooperation with the World Heritage Convention Advisory Bodies and coordinated by ICOMOS Norway, from 2011 to 2016.ICOMOS 18th General Assembly Resolution 43 (2014)
Resolution 43 requests the continuity of three key elements of OCD-RBA in ICOMOS’ International Working Plan for 2015-2017: analysis of 2011-2014 work to identify next steps and strategies, continued integration of rights-based approaches in ICOMOS’ advisory work on the World Heritage Convention, and continuing to enhance understanding of rights-based approaches in ICOMOS networks through dialogue.ICOMOS 17th General Assembly Resolution 30 (2011)
Resolution 30 requests the development of OCD-RBA as a key activity for ICOMOS.