Najaf charter for the conservation, restoration, and rehabilitation of cities, urban areas, historic-heritage monuments, and the natural heritage protection

The most important characteristic of this charter is that, it is considered the first comprehensive document of its kind to be accomplished in Iraq concerned with the Iraqi city and working to preserve its heritage and identity. Substantially, it is an elaborate Iraqi product with a sober global vision. In this charter, the features of the dialectical relationship among man, place and time, have been defined in accurate expressions, simplicity and clarity, as well as, thus the reader and whoever follows the provisions of this charter can touch in it the human and juridical language that affirms the right of societies and peoples to preserve their heritage and cultural achievement as well as, preserve their memory from extinction. This charter bears the name of Al-Najaf, because it is the city that witnessed at the beginning of 2011, the first consultative sessions in which the issue of identity and heritage of Iraqi cities was discussed and what they suffer from obliteration and removal as a result of many factors and how to preserve them. And an elite of Iraqi experts and specialists joined these. The sessions that led to the need to prepare a charter concerned with this matter. In 2013, efforts paid off with the issuance of the first version of the Najaf Charter, which would serve as an integrated road map for all concerned in the administrations of the city affairs, decision-makers, in addition to planners, engineers, academics, researchers and those interested in the identity and distinctive heritage of each city. Najaf city, served as a starting point for serving all cities in Iraq. Seven years after the issuance of the first version, and through in-depth studies, academic research and a series of specialized conferences and seminars, the second version of the charter was issued in 2020, which included important qualitative additions and included more than a number of axes that dealt with several issues related to conservation. This charter does not stop the development of the city or be an obstacle to the spread of the manifestations of modernity in it, but rather works to find a scientific and balanced solution to the dialectical relationship between authenticity, what it carries in memory, cultural heritage and modernity as a human and technical need imposed by the laws of life, so this charter comes to govern all these activities in the city space, with the rules of preserving the identity, as same as to all the cities in the world. The Preservation Center of Heritage and Identity of Iraqi Citieswww.pchiic.ieefoundation.org