INTRODUCTION

To use cultural heritage protection in order to study the notion of public interest in law may seem unusual. It is believed, however, that cultural heritage protection may reveal a great deal about the process of how public interest is established and perceived by Western societies.

Firstly, systematic cultural heritage protection is a relatively new phenomenon. Despite its novelty, it has come to be considered as constituting public interest in addition to traditional instances of public interest such as public security, public order or public health. This fact clearly implies that the notion of public interest is dynamic, not static.

Secondly, although the idea of systematic cultural heritage protection owes its existence mostly to restricted circles of intellectuals and connoisseurs (“heritage community“), it has been accepted by the wider society and, as a result, has been reflected in public policies and transposed into law. At least in some instances, thus, the emergence of public interest may be triggered by quantitatively minor groups and, in reality, does not have to genetically proceed from “volonté de tous.”

Thirdly, as the scope of the notion of cultural heritage has expanded, the content of the notion of public interest in cultural heritage protection has evolved as well. This fact demonstrates that there is an existential link between the way we understand public interest and public goods that the notion of public interest pertains to.

Fourthly, since 1945, the protection of cultural heritage has been proclaimed to constitute a universal value, the common interest of humanity and, recently, also, the common public interest As a result, states are obliged to promote this instance of public interest under international law. This suggests that, at least in some cases, the content of the notion of public interest is, to some extent, internationalised in the contemporary world.

Since the 1990s, such a kind of internationalisation has actually occurred with respect to cultural heritage protection in European States under the impact of the ECHR, as interpreted by the ECtHR.