Page 21 - World Heritage and Tourism Innovation

Critics on Heritage Laws and Tourism Politics

in Ethiopia: Multi-layered Delphi Approach

Hiyab Gebretsadik Weldearegay
Aksum University, Tigray
hiyabgebretsadik.gg@gmail.com

This research has analysed the substantive essence of the Constitution of the Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) on mandated jurisdiction about heritage
matters between federal and state governments. It has also scrutinised the FDRE
Proclamation No. 209/2000 on its constitutional permissibility, and its validity
against international declarations. A Multi-layered Delphi Method was used with
interdisciplinary sub-panels. Accordingly, the constitution substantively and ma-
jorly puts heritage matters as state jurisdiction rather than federal power. However,
it also has polyphony-monograph dilemma as it puts multi-layered sovereignty on
heritages, makes hybridization of responsibility, and has constitutional silence on
the schemata of exercises of its stipulations. In this regard, its essence of federalism
has dialectical problems of being rhetorical and lacking transcendence. Politically,
it suffers from imperialist syndrome on heritage ownership which is a legacy of
Unitarianism that dominated the political scene of Ethiopia. On the other hand, the
essence of proclamation No. 209/2000 is found to be against international declara-
tions on the rights of indigenous peoples regarding heritage self-determination that
put heritage sites as first and forever local places. Majority of the contents of this
federal proclamation fall under jurisdictions of regional state powers which make
it unconstitutionally. It also establishes a neo-imperialist structure. As an impact,
and politically, this opens doors to (deliberate) delay of conservation of treasure,
productivity of meanings that construct counter-history where the politicized ‘por-
tion of truth’ is produced, and biasedly publicizing certain heritages as “national”
prestige. It also opens doors to lootings, and smuggling. At last, it is found that this
hyper-centralization again harms indigenous people on heritage economics and fair
remunerations from tourism as it can storylin and mold public opinions on which
tourist destination is ought to be popular.
Keywords: Heritage Laws, Tourism Politics, Ethiopian Tourism, Delphi Approach,
Heritage Economics
https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-417-0.17-31

Introduction which establishes the Federal Authority for Research
The specific questions of interest of this research are and Conservation of Cultural Heritages (hereafter
the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic ARCCH).
of Ethiopia (hereafter FDRE), and the FDRE procla- The Proclamation is the highest Ethiopian herit-
mation decreed under Proclamation No 209/2000, age-related legal framework next to the Constitution,

Proceedings of the 7th UNESCO UNITWIN Conference | 17