Legislative Protection of Cultural Heritage Resources: A South African Perspective

Abstract

This article will investigate the influence, relevance and importance of international law with regard to the current cultural heritage protection regime in South Africa. It will furthermore explore the influence of the provisions of the Constitution, 1996 on the desire manifested in the National Heritage Resources Act (NHRA) to protect cultural heritage resources of the South African community as a whole. The NHRA does not contain a charter to guide the process of heritage assessment. For this reason the provisions of the Australian Burra Charter are employed (by way of a comparative legal study) by the South African Heritage Resource Agency and various other heritage practitioners, as a guide to developing strategies for understanding the problem of heritage assessment, managing resource assessment and developing policies with regard to the assessment.