A country becomes a state party once it signs the Convention (Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage), and it means that it is and will always be duty-bound to protect the cultural and natural heritages within its territory.

Once a country signs to join in the Convention, its native heritages can be inscribed into the “World Heritage List” to be further nominated. An item of heritage shall be presented by the central government of the country to the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation), though it may be originally nominated by locals somewhere. But first of all, the central government has to decide which heritage site can be nominated, and this selecting work is what is referred to as Identification.  

According to the Convention, only if each and every state party offers a list of heritages that are thought to have outstanding universal values, can a tentative list of heritage candidates be reported to the World Heritage Centre (WHC) of the UNESCO.

When a state party decides to nominate one of its places as world heritage site, it shall fill the Nomination Form. In particular, each and every state party, in compliance with the criteria by the World Heritage Committee, has to expound why the place can be inscribed into the World Heritage List, e.g., what is special significance? What else shall be included are the current protection and management situation, and comparison, if possible, with somewhere of the same kind. The ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) and the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) are responsible for evaluation. Only after the evaluation mentioned above, can heritage candidates be recommended to and selected by the World Heritage Committee.

In order to make a global strategy for the representative and balanced “World Heritage List”, the World Heritage Committee always does its best to inscribe into the List world heritages on the basis of balanced distribution in every region in the world such as Africa, Arab countries, Asia, the Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean Sea, etc. As early as 1974, the Committee, in order to ensure regional cultural and natural diversity of the List, passed a resolution to make a global strategy for the representative and balanced “World Heritage List”.

Applicant Country
The country, which signs to be subject to the Convention, will become a member country and shall carry out protection of both natural and cultural heritages within its territory.

Member Country
(1)-To make detailed lists for its heritages which exhibit general values or special values;
(2)-To offer suggestion for including its cultural and historical relics into the lists mentioned in (1);  
(3)-To submit the application documents to the World Heritage Centre (WHC) of the UNESCO.  

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre
-To verify the application documents
-To submit the application documents to organisations as below:
1-The ICOMOS, for cultural heritages;
2-The IUCN, for natural heritages; and
3-The ICOMOS and the IUCN, for mixed (dual) heritages

The ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites)
-To dispatch experts or specialists to sites of the applicant country, and these dispatched experts will: (1)-conduct evaluation, protection and management for the cultural relics; (2)-prepare application report;
-To verify the cultural relics as regulated by the Convention;
-To submit the evaluation report, together with the documents of recommendation, to the World Heritage Bureau. 
The World Heritage Bureau
-To verify documents;
-To ask for supplementary materials from the applicant country;
-To make recommendation to the World Heritage Committee.

The World Heritage Committee
-To ask for supplementary materials from the applicant country before inscribing a heritage into the List;
-To refuse to inscribe a heritage into the List;
-To accept a heritage and inscribe it into the List.