Batik in Bethlehem, Hikaye in Hannover

Who owns the Mona Lisa? Is the Argentine Tango still cultural heritage when danced in Germany? The already difficult relation between the idea of national treasures on the one hand and a common heritage of mankind on the other got even more complex since the ratification of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Though both national as international measures of safeguarding try to preserve cultural treasures and the ideas of identity lying within, the national approaches of allocation and the international instruments of communication appear quite contrary. Against this background the essay seeks to argue the intertwining concepts of safeguarding in respect of the ideas of identity they follow and examines the nexus to basic legal categories for structuring societies.