The World Heritage Convention: Compliance, Public Participation and the Rights of Indigenous People

Holding states to account when they either deliberately fail to meet their obligations, or are unable to do so for lack of capacity (financial or technical), is an important role for any international (non-)compliance procedure (NCP). This article considers reform of the NCP of theWorld Heritage Convention. As one of the oldest environmental treaties to which Australia is a Party, ironically the Convention contains a well-established NCP even though it is rarely recognised as such. The article reviews existing compliance mechanisms and analyses three key aspects of those mechanisms: national reporting, compliance review and public participation.Taking Australia as an example of a state which has often failed to comply fully with the Convention decisions, the advantages of such a procedure are examined with a particular emphasis on improving public participation and giving effect to the rights of Indigenous people.