Heritage as Fact or Legal Issue

Heritage is a paramount fact of human existence and is the matrix of huge cultural and political power. It is a fact of transversal character, which “traverses” most constituents and vicissitudes of human existence, both within the person’s intimate sphere and in the context of her external manifestations and interactions with other people. It is a fact unifying the members of a given cultural community and so attains a collective or public significance. It is also a fact of political relevance as a generating-power element of international policy and diplomacy. In legal disputes heritage as a fact is often “elevated” to a legal (or law-related) issue, because it attains the role of a decisive factor in determining the legal matters at stake. Heritage is hence a powerful – power-generating – fact which shapes the law and becomes itself a source of law, even when it is not codified in any legal texts relevant for a given dispute.