The book Intangible Cultural Heritage under National and International Law: Going beyond the 2003 UNESCO Convention published in 2020 is edited by Marie Cornu, Anita Vaivade, Lily Martinet and Clea Hance is based on the Osmose project initiated in 2014 to study the legal regimes established in different countries to safeguard the ICH. The editors and their team coordinated an international study on the ICH in about 26 countries. A comprehensive questionnaire was circulated among informed members in these countries to elicit information regarding the comprehension and negotiation of the pertinent national laws and how these national laws were modified, or may be retained, in light of the provisions of the UNESCO convention of 2003. After collecting the responses to the questionnaire, the editors have categorized, commented and expanded on the responses under several broad heads like environment and the ICH, interaction between the national and the international laws, the national and international tools for the safeguarding of the ICH, and, importantly, the judicialization of the ICH. All complexities involved in the institutionalization of laws at the local, national and international levels about the ICH are put forward in a transparent manner without prejudice or unconditional bolstering of the clauses of the UNESCO Convention. This is the first such comprehensive study on the connection between the international legal framework and the national legal instruments for safeguarding the ICH.

The UNESCO convention of 2003 on the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) is an important milestone in the discussion on the global ICH. There was a tacit recognition of the fact in organization of the Convention that cultural diversity and heritage are an equivalent of the........

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