Julian Schellong

»Outstanding Value to Humanity«: International Monument Conservation, UNESCO, and the Construction of a Global Past, c. 1941-1989 (PhD project)

My project studies the universalization of cultural heritage and the internationalization of monument preservation within the concept of 'World Heritage.' The concept assumed that cultural heritage does not represent a single nation but rather reflects a shared past of all humanity and belongs to the global population. After World War II, conservators and organizations such as UNESCO launched international campaigns to safeguard monuments around the world, for example, in Abu Simbel (Egypt), Borobudur (Indonesia), or Kotor (SFR Yugoslavia). In 1972, they established the UNESCO World Heritage Program, a bureaucratic system for the global management of cultural heritage.

I argue that the development of universal cultural heritage was shaped by three key dynamics: Seizing opportunities for monument care in global conflicts; balancing be-tween center and periphery in the postcolonial world; and adjusting professional principles to practicalities on-site.

The project is a history of the ideals and practices of monument preservation. It studies four cases of international conservation projects and analyzes its actors, motivations, and implications. The project seeks to contribute to the history of international cultural politics and to cultural history of globalization.

The project draws from historical material from ICOMOS International (Paris), UNESCO (Paris), ICCROM (Rome), Archivio Piero Gazzola (Verona), among others.

The Commodification of CO2. Environmental and Knowledge History of International Climate Policy, c. 1970-2000 (working title)

Carbon dioxide absorbs electromagnetic radiation such as heat. Thus, the gas heats the terrestrial atmosphere–the so-called greenhouse effect. In the Kyoto Protocol from 1997, the United Nations adopted a market-based mechanism to solve the problem of anthropogenic global warming. In markets for emission rights, producers of greenhouse gases were made to pay for their emissions and thus had incentives to reduce fossil fuel consumption. The international community made CO2 a scarce commodity that could be paid for and traded internationally.

The project seeks to explain how and why scientists and the international community have designed and enforced markets for emission rights. It examines the historical context that enabled the commodification of CO2 and identifies the interests that played into this policy. It also seeks to understand how carbon trading worked in practice. The project analyzes the arguments, political constellations, and techniques by which the market-based climate governance was conceived, enacted, and implemented.

My hypothesis is that the commodification of CO2 was shaped by a friction of knowledge and power: knowledge about the atmosphere and geophysics as much as about economic theory, markets, and business management. Climate policy decisions conflated this knowledge with geopolitical goals and leverage in international relations. It was only when CO2 was conceived from different academic disciplines and subordinated to political interests that the substance could become a globally traded commodity.

Julian Schellong

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