The Convention and the Operational Directives, together with a number of Committee documents, provide explicit guidance on a set of guiding principles or requirements for inventories that States Parties wish to present at the international level as official
inventories covering the intangible cultural heritage present in their territory. Such inventories:
1. should be based on procedures that were agreed upon with the communities, groups or, where appropriate, individuals concerned,
while their consent is required before the start of inventorying processes, and for major decisions during these processes (Article 15; Ethical Principle 4; Committee documents);
2. should present intangible cultural heritage elements that were identified with the participation of the communities and groups concerned,
and of relevant non- governmental organizations (Article 11(b), Ethical Principle 1);
3. should aim to be inclusive (Article 11(b)); g
4. should contain substantial information about the inventoried elements (Article 12.1);
5. should be designed in such a way that they contribute to the purposes of the Convention, safeguarding in the first place (Article 12.1);
6. should be regularly updated (Article 12.1), with the participation of the communities, groups and individuals concerned (Article 15);
7. should be reported about in the six-yearly periodic reports that States Parties have to submit to the Committee (Article 12.2)
8. should respect customary practices concerning access to intangible cultural heritage (Article 13(d)(ii)).
May, 2016
May, 2017
September, 2018