By Toby McIntosh
The United Nations agency that advocates for the right of information internationally, UNESCO, has refused to make public the first decision made by its access to information panel.
The panel’s decision concerns a request by an unnamed person for documents about the selection of cultural heritage sites. UNESCO’s World Heritage List includes 1,248 properties which the World Heritage Committee determines to have outstanding universal value.
UNESCO denied the request and its decision was upheld by the seven-person panel, made up mostly of UNESCO employees, that handles appeals of initial denials.
EYE on Jan. 20 filed a formal request for the panel’s opinion. The request was turned down Jan. 27.
In denying EYE’s request, UNESCO cited three exemptions in the access policy. It said the panel decision “forms part of the UNESCO’s internal deliberations and communications,” “relates to an individual inquiry handled on a case-specific basis,” and “could involve personal data, including through indirect identification of individuals.”
The UNESCO appeals panel has handled just one appeal, according to the UNESCO 2023 annual report on its access policy. UNESCO does not publish the panel’s decisions, a staff person said, although their disclosure is not addressed in the UNESCO access to information policy.
EYE will appeal. And make public the decision.
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Requested Document Concerned Heritage Site Evaluation
The appeals panel upheld UNESCO’s decision to deny a request which is described only as:
Request for access to WHC – ICOMOS November 2020 Technical Review Document.
Decoding the acronyms indicates that it refers to the International Council on Monuments and Sites which provides the World Heritage Committee with evaluations of nominations for inclusion on the World Heritage List.
ICOMOS’s website described it as “a non-governmental organisation working to conserve and protect cultural heritage sites around the world.” And further, “We are the only worldwide NGO dedicated to applying scientific techniques, theories and methodology to the conservation of both tangible and intangible elements of cultural heritage places.”
The ICOMOS website does not appear to provide technical review documents, but refers to “technical evaluation missions.” Several such missions were carried out preceding and ICOMOS World Heritage Panel session in November 2020 and two extraordinary sessions in January 2021, according to the website.
Why the initial request was denied is not specified. The identity of the requester is not known.
Of note, both the World Bank and the IFC publish the decisions of their appeals panels. The World Bank in June 2025 even published an 11-page report summarizing “valuable jurisprudence” and six “prominent lessons” drawn from 100 cases over 15 years. (See EYE article.)
Appeals Panel Enlarged, Still Not Independent
In what it termed a “technical amendment,” UNESCO in 2023 amended its access policy, without public consultation, to expand the size of its appeals panel so that it now has five UNESCO employees and two external members. The previous ratio was 4:1. The panel not only handles appeals but also advises on UNESCO’s access policy.
By continuing to have an appeals panel dominated by UNESCO employees, UNESCO is contradicting its advice that oversight and appeals bodies at the national level be “independent administrative bodies.”
The UNESCO-sponsored Tashkent Declaration of 2022 urged governments to “provide for an effective system of oversight, including by independent administrative bodies which are endowed with the necessary resources.”
A 2021 UNESCO report said that “countries that have a specialized oversight institution for access to information are likely to perform better than those without.” And as the monitor of national performance on access to information for the Sustainable Development Goals process, UNESCO in its annual SDG questionnaire asks governments about the existence of independent oversight bodies.
There are now two “external” members on UNESCO’s appeals panel, with one new external person added, according to UNESCO’s 2024 Annual Report concerning the application of the policy on Access to Information, which lists the members. The other five panel members are high-ranking UNESCO employees.
The newest external member is a former UNESCO staff member, Guy Berger, an ”Independent media and Internet Expert,” who worked at UNESCO for 10 years, until July 2022, as a top-level official on freedom of expression and media development issues.
The other external member is a French attorney and law professor, Alexandre Balguy-Gallois, with no other past or present connection with the agency.
Varied Criteria by Other IOs for Selecting Panelists
International organizations (IOs) that use external experts to handle appeals have only general definitions of who qualifies. The selections are made by the organization’s top official, as is the case at UNESCO.
UNESCO’s policy states:
Members of the Panel will be selected on the basis of the following criteria: in-depth knowledge and thorough understanding of UNESCO policies, structures, programmes and operations at Headquarters and Field Unit levels; thorough knowledge of, and familiarity with, information disclosure and access to information policies; and proven ability to work with UNESCO partners.
Language from other access policies suggests that both expertise and independence are necessary qualities, but provide little detail.
The ADB policy says the panel “will comprise three external experts on access to information, independent from ADB.” The IDB describes “… an external panel independent of IDB Invest Management.” The World Bank Appeals Board “comprises three outside experts on access to information matters.”
The UNEP has one panel member “from outside of UNEP.” The policy says: “Members of the Panel will be selected on the basis of the following criteria: in-depth knowledge and thorough understanding of UNEP policies, structures, programmes and operations at Headquarters, Regional and Sub-regional or Country Office levels; thorough knowledge of, and familiarity with, information disclosure and access to information policies; and proven ability to work with UNEP partners.” Uniquely, UNEP keeps the identity of the outside expert secret.
IO Appeals Body Membership Differs
UNESCO is not unique among international organizations in having an appeals mechanism composed both of outsiders and insiders, according to an EYE review of policies at 14 international organizations. (See EYE’s list of IO access policies.)
A few international organizations have appeals panels made up entirely of external experts (the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank). The IFC also uses an external panel, although the IFC access policy severely restricts what can be appealed.
A review panel with both internal and external members exists at the African Development Bank. The UN Environment Program has a three-person panel, one of whom is an outside person. UNEP refuses to disclose the identities of the panel members. (See EYE article.)
Some organizations have review boards composed only of agency officials, such as the International Maritime Organization. Others have only internal staff review mechanisms, such as the World Health Organization.
Changes Quietly Approved by UNESCO
UNESCO’s latest small modification was made without seeking public comment or issuing an announcement of the change. The only hint was a new date on the posted, revised policy.
The decision was made in April of 2024 “following the third meeting of the Access to Information Panel.” The revised policy was posted in September of 2024, with no notice that changes had been made.
Major reviews of access policies at international organizations, such as the one now occurring at the International Finance Corporation, are usually conducted with invitations for public input. Public consultations were held in recent years by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration and the Inter-American Development Bank as they redid their policies.
However, small revisions to access policies sometimes are made without advance notice or subsequent announcement.
For example, the International Monetary Fund, which prepares detailed assessments of sovereign debt risks, decided in 2022 to keep some of its conclusions confidential, and accordingly changing its transparency policy, without notification. However, in 2024, when the IMF reviewed its whole Transparency Policy, it conducted a survey and held meeting with civil society organizations before announcing the Board’s decision, making modest changes.
UNESCO also quietly made “a very technical update” in 2022, giving UNESCO more flexibility to release documents “in exceptional circumstances.” (See EYE article, May 12, 2023.)
A historical note: UNESCO didn’t hold a public consultation in 2017 when it first adopted its access policies and procedures. The press office then said there was a “full consultation for all our member states for 11 months via a letter, sent by the Director General in March 2017.”
UNESCO Request Numbers From Annual Reports
UNESCO reported receiving and closing 19 “desk requests” for the year ended on Dec. 31, 2024, according to the December 2024 annual report.
The 2024 report, like its predecessors, characterizes how the requests were answered. By far the most common outcomes are “granted” or “already available,” plus a handful of “redirected” to other places. Most of these redirected requests got to NATCOMs, national commissions formed by member governments to be the national liaisons to UNESCO. No requests appear to have been denied during the reporting year.
UNESCO’s response time is now about 13 days.
For the seven years since institution of the policy in 2018 for which data is available, there have been 157 requests, according to the 2024 report.
The most common questions related to the “culture” aspect of UNESCO’s mission. The top four countries generating requests are the United States, France, Brazil and China.
An annex to the annual report summarizes the requests. Some 2024 examples:
- Request for access to information about the financial resources that have been made available so far, since 16 July 1996, for the World Heritage Site Historic Centre of São Luis, Brazil.
- Request for access to the documents “Access to Environmental Information in Latin America and the Caribbean: Synthesis of Decisions of Guarantor Bodies and Selected Jurisprudence”
- Request for access to information concerning the expropriation of a property in the historic center of Lima, a site inscribed on the World Heritage List.
- Request for information on UNESCO’s protocol for the use of UNESCO surveys related to Education for Sustainable Development Practices.
