UNESCO and the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Between Global Visibility and Local Sustainability

With the ratification of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, the safeguarding of intangible cultural practices has been established as a normatively binding framework of international cultural policy. This development has placed the field at the core of contemporary discourses on cultural diversity, sustainable development, and identity revitalization. In Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the processes of institutionalizing the protection of intangible heritage unfold under complex conditions of asymmetric constitutional division of competences, normative fragmentation, and functional dispersion of responsibilities, resulting in the absence of a coherent and coordinated cultural policy system. The paper focuses on assessing the potential of integrated and strategically structured management of intangible cultural assets to generate synergistic effects between cultural valorization, local sustainability, and transnational recognition. Methodologically, this study applies a critical, comparative-analytical interpretation of the institutional and legal framework of BiH, with special reference to the position of intangible cultural heritage within strategic policy documents. The analysis of the national register, including elements inscribed on the UNESCO lists, underscores the urgent need for intersectoral and transdisciplinary mechanisms to safeguard and valorize cultural heritage as instruments of cultural policy aimed at strengthening collective identity, fostering cultural tourism, and positioning BiH within the global cultural landscape.