The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS; ) is a professional association that works for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places around the world. Now headquartered in Charenton-le-Pont, France, ICOMOS was founded in 1965 in Warsaw as a result of the Venice Charter of 1964 and offers advice to UNESCO on World Heritage Sites.
The idea behind ICOMOS dates to the Athens Conference on the restoration of historic buildings in 1931, organized by the International Museums Office. The Athens Charter of 1931 introduced the concept of international heritage. In 1964, the Second Congress of Architects and Specialists of Historic Buildings, meeting in Venice, adopted 13 resolutions. The first created the International Charter on the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites, better known as Venice Charter; the second, put forward by UNESCO, created ICOMOS to carry out this charter.
ICOMOS currently has over 10,100 individual members in 153 countries, 110 national committees, and 28 international scientific committees. With rare exceptions, each member must be qualified in the field of conservation and a practicing landscape architect, architect, archaeologist, anthropologist, town planner, engineer, administrator of heritage, historian, art historian, palaeontologist or archivist.
ICOMOS is a partner and founding member of the Blue Shield, which works to protect the world's cultural heritage threatened by war and natural disasters.
ICOMOS structure
ICOMOS is composed of its national committees (NCs), to which individuals and institutions apply for membership. In addition to the national committees, ICOMOS has a series of international scientific committees (ISCs), in which experts in a certain field of activity within the context of heritage conservation exchange views and debate.
The organization is headed by a president, five vice-presidents, a secretary-general and a treasurer all directly elected by the general assembly of the organization. 12 additional members are also elected by the General Assembly into the Executive Committee and five further members are co-opted into the executive board in order to represent regions of the world or areas of expertise that were not part of the executive committee following the elections. Ex officio members of the executive committee are the president of the advisory committee and the previous presidents of ICOMOS, who attend in advisory capacity. The executive committee is the executive body of ICOMOS.
The advisory committee is composed of the chairpersons of the national committees, the chairpersons of the international scientific committees and the president of ICOMOS as an ex officio member. The advisory committee was given the task to advise and make recommendations to the General Assembly and the Executive Committee on matters which concern policy and programme priorities.
National committees
National committees are subsidiary organizations created in the countries which are members of UNESCO. They bring together individual and institutional members and offer them a framework for discussion and an exchange of information. Each national committee adopts its own rules of procedure and elaborates its own program according to the goals and aims of ICOMOS. In 2021, ICOMOS has 107 national committees. ICOMOS website includes a list regularly updated.
International scientific committees
International scientific committees (ISCs) are entities focus on specialised areas of heritage conservation and are made up of members of the organisation drawn from those specialist areas. The scientific programmes of the organisation are coordinated by the "scientific council" made up of the presidents of the ISCs. Nowadays, ICOMOS has 28 ISCs. A list regularly updated is available on ICOMOS website.
Working groups
ICOMOS conducts a process of reflection on doctrine and good practice on current issues involving the conservation of cultural heritage. To this end, it sets up working groups made up of ICOMOS members who are heritage professionals: architects, archaeologists, professors and researchers, curators and scientists. The aim of these groups can be the drafting of a charter, the implementation of concrete activities (working sessions, workshops). There are currently 6 working groups, the list of which can be found on the ICOMOS website, in which experts reflect on a wide variety of subjects related to heritage conservation: indigenous heritage, sustainable development, Syria/Iraq, climate change and emerging professionals.