This book is a product of the recent intensified interest of heritage scholars and lawyers in the critical analysis of the impacts of international heritage law safeguarding the heritage of local communities. Lixinski locates the ‘blind spots which often get overlooked in the actions of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and can have severe and unintended consequences. Lixinski is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies, among other significant honours. Through this book, he seeks to understand why communities lack agency in the international heritage decision-making process.

The book focuses on two main themes, namely, the relationship between heritage and the environment, and the use of experts in international heritage law and economics. Internationalism, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism in international heritage law are also discussed in depth. In the chapter titled “Stakeholders in International Heritage Law”, Lixinski defines international heritage law as largely State-centric and that this leads to sidelining the appropriate communities from accessing the heritage decision-making process and in contributing to heritage disappearance in the long term.

In the chapter titled “Definitions: From Cultural Property to Cultural Heritage (and Back?)”, Lixinski outlines the five UNESCO treaties that support international heritage law's fundamental “conservation paradigm”. Instead of analyzing the treaties collectively as a unit, Lixinski critically examines them individually, viewing them as a “discursive continuum” in cultural heritage, and exposes the regimes’ defects and their exclusion of communities from their tangible and intangible heritage.

In the chapter titled “Temporalities of International Heritage Law”, Lixinski details how the exclusion of communities by the State can lead to negative impacts under international law, the most common being genocides. Similarly, in the chapter titled “International Heritage Law and the Market”, he deduces that a legitimate market can create incentives to safeguard heritage for governments and communities if heritage is preserved at all costs. On the contrary, in the chapter titled “Heritage and the Environment”, the author discusses how environmental factors can further alienate communities from their heritage if international heritage law does not intervene.

In the chapter titled “Implementation and Enforcement of International Heritage Law”, the author argues that courts and court-like bodies should use effective enforcement mechanisms rather than take a central role. He concludes that there are positive achievements alongside the negative aspects of the UNESCO treaties and foreshadows the challenges ahead.

The position of this book in the relevant literature remains undisputed and perfectly complements other articles and books by authors in the same field, which includes Lixinski's previous works.Footnote ¹ For instance, despite similarities with Janet Blake's International Cultural Heritage Law,Footnote ² Lixinski transcends by examining in depth the policies in five UNESCO treaties and reveals their shortcomings in safeguarding cultural heritage. Surveying the UNESCO treaties as a continuous sequence rather than as isolated regimes makes this book exceptional; this book challenges the foundation of the conservation paradigm by promoting an engagement among heritage lawyers, scholars, and professionals in other disciplines to better understand international heritage law.