The responsibilities of the state in preserving immovable cultural and natural properties: A comparative analysis

The state is the major actor in preserving cultural and natural properties. International agreements and national statutes bring great numbers of responsibilities regarding preservation to the state. Those responsibilities are neither possible nor effective method to perform alone for the state. The new understanding of preservation requires multidimensional approaches in preserving cultural and natural heritage. Analysing the international covenants and the experiences of the other countries may contribute to the understanding of preservation and to the reappraisal of the protection system. Even though Turkey has a quite significant history in concern with the protection of cultural and natural properties, it is not possible at this point to mention the protection structure is very successful. The main hypothesis of the study is that the state protection management based on central government's activities is deficit. For this reason, the role of the state should be reassessed pursuant to the international law and experiences of the other countries. In this study, new discussions are brought in a comparative manner on the role of the state by examining the U.S preservation system which has remarkable differences when compared to Turkey.Analysing the international regulations constituting principles of protection and the Japanese protection system considered as one of the best protection systems in the world enrich the discussion over the role of the state. The importance of the study is that, in tandem with the submission of all details of the U.S protection system, the public participation in sharing the state's responsibilities in preservation, transfer of development rights, and alternative dispute resolution methods are also discussed.As a result of the study, it was concluded that the above-mentioned hypothesis was confirmed.