At the 43rd Session of the World Heritage Committee (held in Baku, Republic of Azerbaijan 30 June – 10 July 2019) the Operational Guidelines of World Heritage Convention were revised. The Decision 43 COM 11 A Revision of the Operational Guidelines (OG) was based on the OCDI-RBA Working Group contribution. The revised World Heritage Operational Guidelines now encourage State Parties to adopt a human rights-based approach.

The Heritage and Rights training course, held in June 2019 in Estonia, focused on the empowerment of local communities and cooperation between state, community and individuals in the governance of heritage.

ICOMOS has explored rights issues in World Heritage through the Our Common Dignity Initive since 2007. In 2011 the ICOMOS initiative expanded to a cooperation for the Advisory Bodies to the World Heritage Convention (ICCROM, ICOMOS, IUCN) under the coordination by ICOMOS Norway.
The main objective of the initiative is building awareness of rights issues in World Heritage and heritage management in general, to promote “good practice” approaches and to develop and promote relevant tools and guidelines, in particular for World Heritage from tentative lists and nominations through conservation and management of the sites.