Importance of International Legislations in the Protection of the Cultural Heritage: “European Union Cultural Heritage Legislation and Turkey Project”

Mahmut AYDIN / Saadet GUNER / Ali Kazim OZ

(Friends of Cultural Heritage (FOCUH) Association, Istanbul, Turkey)

International Legislations published by UNESCO, EU, EC, ICOMOS..etc are the guidelines for experts working on the protection of the cultural heritage. However, when the educations of archeologists, restorators and conservators, architects, art historians ..etc. who has the greatest role in the preservation of cultural heritage, it is not wrong to say that none of the departments of universities in Turkey, except for one or two universities, have lessons in English at all. Therefore, the legislations of European Union, conventions, charters, ethic codes …etc of UNESCO, ICOMOS, ICOM..published about the preservation of the cultural heritage in English and signed or will be signed by the Republic of Turkey are understood very little or not at all by the experts and decision makers. In this case, few translated texts into Turkish of these legislations are presented only on paper or can be delivered by the struggles of a few academics. This situation causes problems and unacceptable implementations during the protection of the cultural heritage in Turkey and on the way of the membership of Turkey to EU. In order to make up for this deficiency, our association (FOCUH) directs the EU Project (2006-2007) titled “EU European Union Cultural Heritage Legislation and Turkey Project” with the partnership of Dokuz Eylül University (DEU), Izmir to translate international legislations about culture and protection of the cultural heritage into Turkish. MA and PHD Students work in this Project. In this paper, this Project, its reasons, outputs..etc will be explained in detail.

Keywords: cultural heritage, Turkey, EU legislations, UNESCO