Panel Discussion

Chairs: Clara Arokiasamy OBE and Dr. Ishanlosen Odiaua
Co-Chair: Dr. Hossam Mahdi (CIAV), Ar. Mohd Zulhemlee An (Chair, Wood Committee, ICOMOS Malaysia),
Lassana Cisse (ICOMOS Mali), Zahida Quadri (ICOMOS Pakistan), Zuhura Mtengusi (EPWG Africa)

1. Context setting – a key note address to outline key issues
2. Oral presentations covering following topics: 
   • examples of S-SC in the areas of emergency response,
   • safeguarding and protecting living heritage, in particular heritage crafts skills in the conservation of wood, and vernacular architecture,
   • enabling the development of local solutions,
   • transmission of knowledge and skills to future generations
3. Break out groups to discuss key issues and recommendations for way forward chaired by panellists
4. Plenary – report back on discussion and three recommendations to carry forward from each group
5. Concluding remarks by the chair and a way forward

Chairs: Professor Cornelius Holtorf (Chairholder, UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures)
(in discussion with Dr Zeynep-Gul Unal , Dr Kai Weise, Dr Steve Brown, Dr Toshiyuki Kono, Dr Marcus Bengtsson, Dr Ulrika Mebus)

The 2024 UN Pact for the Future and its Appendices (available at https://www.un.org/pact-for-the-future/en) pledges “a new beginning in multilateralism” and sets out an ambitious agenda for the world’s common future, reaffirming an enduring commitment to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development while committing to culture as an integral component of sustainable development.

The Heads of the World’s States and Governments, representing the peoples of the world, “condemn in the strongest terms the devastating impact of armed conflict on … cultural heritage,” and they pledge to “honour, promote and preserve cultural diversity and cultural heritage.” The panel is directly related to the TSP 2024-2027 which calls for developing research & policy and building capacity for the future in the area of Disaster and Conflict Resilient Heritage.

Given that the next GA 2029 will likely be held in close proximity to the expiry and possible replacement of the Agenda 2030, the present session also addresses the current need to discuss jointly the potential of cultural heritage sites and landscapes to contribute to the world’s future agenda from 2030 onwards.

Chair: Prof. Dr. Zeynep Gül Ünal (ICOMOS Board Member, ICOMOS ICORP President)

Recalling the adoption by the ICOMOS General Assembly of the theme “Disaster and Conflict Resilient Heritage” for the Triennial Scientific Plan (TSP) 2024–2027 in Sydney, Australia (Decision ADCOM 2023/10, 7–2), and following the recommendation of the ICOMOS Advisory Committee, the International Committee on Risk Preparedness (ICORP) was entrusted with contributing to the implementation of this priority area. The Triennial Scientific Plan was subsequently endorsed by the ICOMOS Board on 13 November 2024 in Ouro Preto, Brazil.

Following an extended period of discussion and consultation, ICORP has prepared a draft document entitled “Charter on Emergency Preparedness and Response for Cultural Heritage.” The draft, currently under consultation in accordance with ICOMOS procedures, is expected to be presented to the 2026 General Assembly in Kuching for consideration, with a view to possible adoption. This Charter represents a collective response of the international cultural heritage community to the increasing frequency and complexity of climate-related and geological hazards, as well as human-induced conflicts, and reflects a shared commitment to strengthening coordinated action.

The development of this Charter reflects an urgent need. According to ICOMOS surveys of National Committees, while significant progress has been made in the protection of cultural heritage, there remains a need for more coordinated principles, strengthened international cooperation mechanisms, and clearer strategic guidance in the face of increasingly complex disaster and conflict contexts. In response to these needs, and following requests from the ICOMOS Board and its committees, the Charter has been conceived as a common normative and strategic framework for emergency preparedness and response. It aims to support coordinated international action, including the development of transnational collaborative mechanisms—such as task forces—to integrate expertise across disciplines and regions.

This charter aims to establish a common framework for ICOMOS, clarifying its strategic approach to preparedness for emergency response. It calls for the development of measures for rapid and coordinated emergency response, as well as for strengthened international cooperation to safeguard cultural heritage that are at risk of disasters and conflicts. It provides a shared foundation that can be adapted to the specific cultural, legal, and physical conditions of each heritage context, while ensuring coherence with international conventions and the ICOMOS Ethical Principles.
This session will present the main objectives and structure of the draft Charter, while also sharing relevant field experiences. By linking the emerging Charter with practical applications, the session aims to foster dialogue, raise awareness, and support broader engagement in view of the forthcoming stages of the Charter process.

In-person participants from ICOMOS ICORP

• Aparna Tandon 
• Chilangwa Chaiwa
• Cornelius Holtorf
• Cyrill von Planta
• Deirdre McDermott
• Deniz Beck
• Dowon Kim Emily Dy Ramos
• Kai Weise
• Luigi Petti 
• Mario Santana 
• Pedro Cantor
• Rohit Jigyasu
• Sangsun Jo Teresa Patricio
• Takeyuki Okubo 
• Veronica Casanovas
• Zeynep Ece Atabay
• Zeynep Gül Ünal

Co-Chairs: Tracy Ireland and Gai Jorayev (President ISCoAH)
Panel Speakers:
Prof Steve Brown, Global Expert Group on Sustainable Lunar Activities
Dr Neel Kamal Chapagain, Co chair of the Peace theme in Lumbini
Zuhura Mtenguzi, Emerging professional for the Peace theme in Lumbini
Prof Cornelius Holtorf, UNESCO Chair in Heritage Futures

Background
At the AGA 2025 in Lumbini, Nepal, one of the three featured themes of the Scientific Symposium was ‘Leveraging Heritage for Peace’. Over 4 panel sessions, including its final plenary, this theme was explored from diverse cultural, disciplinary, geopolitical, religious, intellectual and philosophical perspectives, resulting in a Lumbini Statement on Heritage and Peace (AGA 2025). Lessons imparted included the recognition of peacebuilding as a process that is needed not only in the recovery and aftermath of conflict, but also as an intentional aspect of everyday social action, and everyday heritage policy and practice (Mac Ginty 2022; Ware &Ware 2022).

Scope
The broad precept of peace building as everyday social action is implicitly embedded in important research and policy work on heritage futures, the need for long term perspectives, and on sustainability and community resilience (eg Holtorf 2026a, 2026b; Mondiacult 2025). However further work is needed to operationalise peace building perspectives in everyday heritage policy and practices, including those developed for response and recovery following disaster and conflict, the focus of the current ICOMOS Triennial Scientific Plan. This work needs to include analysis of the way in which local, national and world heritage processes naturalise, valorise and commemorate war and violent conflict. Hammami et al (2022) have called for a ‘pacific heritage’, a way to do heritage differently so that it is seen as a process in continual dialogue about the future, rather than fixed on a static authentic heritage that manifests the past, thus perpetuating and naturalising the source of conflict (and see Holtorf 2026b; Isakhan and Akbar 2022; Isakhan and Meskell 2024a, 2024b). Isakhan and Akbar (2022) have also analysed the unintended consequences of heritage recovery and reconstruction efforts that assume such actions necessarily build reconciliation and peace, showing they can risk perpetuating or creating new sources of conflict. The potential of linking everyday heritage approaches with everyday peacebuilding has been explored in post conflict Northern Ireland (eg. Breen et al 2026; Ireland et al 2025); while concepts such as ‘small wins’ (Schofield 2024) offer the potential to counter institutional inertia through grassroots activism and small scale social action that does peaceful work.

Aims
These issues are currently at the forefront for the new ISC on Aerospace Heritage (ISCoAH), as it develops its key policy and practice guidelines, including its Statement on the Significance of Aerospace Heritage for the future of humanity. As this tangible and intangible aerospace heritage is so closely entangled in narratives of power, military technology and warfare; and as aviation, lunar and space activities, including engaging with the heritage of these activities, aims to foster peaceful co-existence, the ISC is asking: how can the aims of peacebuilding be embedded in its everyday heritage practices?  

The panel discussion aims to draw on diverse perspectives to inform this policy and practice development, with a particular focus on the challenge ahead for the ISCoAH, and with a focus on how this living heritage can be respected and enhanced by peacebuilding heritage work, including in the context of recovery after disaster or conflict. The panel sets out to explore these questions and derive insights from research and practice that might be incorporated into the capacity building work of ICOMOS, its Triennial Scientific Plan and the diverse work of its ISCs. The session is also a part of the Heritage and Peace project of the ICOMOS University Forum of the Asia Pacific region. 

Format
The format will be based on a 90 minute panel discussion, where 6 invited speakers will contribute a 5 minute commentary, followed by a curated panel discussion, chaired by the co chairs, and including taking questions and comments from the audience. The panel will be recorded and the outcomes published in an open access format, that draws out guidance for linking peacebuilding and everyday heritage practice, including for response and recovery heritage scenarios.

References
AGA 2025 Lumbini Statement on Peace, https://admin.icomos.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/PEACE-STATEMENT_EN.pdf

Breen, C., Reid, A., Deevy, M., Smyth, J., Andreou, G., 2026. Everyday Possibilities for Peace through Cultural Heritage: Navigating Ireland’s Role in a Chaotic World. Irish Studies in International Affairs. DOI:htps:/doi.org/10.1353/isia.0.a981638 

Hammami, F., Harvey, D.C., Laven, D., Walters, D., 2022. Heritage and peacebuilding: Challenges, possibilities and sustainable practices, in: Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Heritage. Routledge.

Holtorf, C. 2026a, Thinking ahead: Culture and Futures Literacy | UNESCO [WWW Document], n.d. URL https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/thinking-ahead-culture-and-futures-literacy (accessed 9.3.26).

Holtorf, Cornelius. 2026b. “Beyond the 1964 Venice Charter: Cultural Heritage as Regeneration (Ever Changing Never Less than Whole).” Conservar Património, ahead of print, March 8. https://doi.org/10.14568/cp37063.

Ireland, T., Brown, S., Bagnall, K., Lydon, J., Sherratt, T., Veale, S., 2025. Engaging the everyday: the concept and practice of ‘everyday heritage.’ International Journal of Heritage Studies 31, 192–215. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2024.2417066

Isakhan, Benjamin, and Ali Akbar. 2022. “Problematizing Norms of Heritage and Peace: Militia Mobilization and Violence in Iraq.” Cooperation and Conflict 57 (4): 516–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367221093161.

Isakhan, B., and Meskell, L., 2024. Local perspectives on heritage reconstruction after conflict: a public opinion survey of Aleppo. International Journal of Heritage Studies 30, 821–839. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2024.2342288

Isakhan, Benjamin, and Lynn Meskell. 2024. “Rebuilding Mosul: Public Opinion on Foreign-Led Heritage Reconstruction.” Cooperation and Conflict 59 (3): 379–404. https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367231177796.

Mac Ginty, Roger. 2022. “Everyday Peace.” In The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77954-2_77.

MONDIACULT 2025 Outcome Document, MONDIACULT 2025 World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable, Barcelona, Spain. https://www.unesco.org/sites/default/files/medias/fichiers/2025/09/EN_MONDIACULT_Outcome_Document%20Final%2027.09.25.pdf

Schofield, J., 2024. Wicked Problems for Archaeologists: Heritage as Transformative Practice. Oxford University Press.

Vonnák, D., Jones, S., Rasmussen, J., Hardy, S., 2025. Mobilising Care for Cultural Heritage in Russia’s War Against Ukraine. University of Stirling. https://doi.org/10.34722/n9m2-tv84

Ware, Anthony, and Vicki-Ann Ware. 2022. “Everyday Peace: Rethinking Typologies of Social Practice and Local Agency.” Peacebuilding 10 (3): 222–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/21647259.2021.1997387.

Zhu, Yujie, and Lucas Lixinski (eds) 2024. Heritage, Conflict, and Peace-Building. Routledge.

From Prof Tracy Ireland 
Immediate Past President Australia ICOMOS 
Expert Member ICAHM, ISCoAH
Chair, ICOMOS University Forum Asia Pacific