There are 21 Committee members represented by 21 States Parties to the World Heritage Convention .

Until the end of the 38th General Conference (2015), the following States Parties are members of the Committee:

Algeria, Colombia, Croatia, Finland, Germany, India, Jamaica, Japan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Senegal, Serbia, Turkey, Viet Nam

Algeria, Colombia, Germany, India, Japan, Malaysia, Qatar, Senegal, Serbia

Croatia, Finland, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Turkey, Viet Nam

Elections to replace outgoing Committee members take place during the General Assembly of States Parties, meeting once every two years during the General Conference of UNESCO (Article 8.3 of the Convention ).

The 20th session of the General Assembly of States Parties to the World Heritage Convention will take place during the 38th session of the General Conference of UNESCO from 18 to 20 November 2015.

According to the Convention, a Committee member's mandate is for 6 years.

The General Assembly (Resolution 13 GA 9, paragraph 6) invites the States Parties to the World Heritage Convention to voluntarily reduce their term of office from six to four years.

In 2015, a total of 9 Committee members will be elected.

According to Rule 13.2 of the Rules of procedure of the General Assembly, members of the World Heritage Committee may stand for election again after a gap of 6 years after the expiry of their mandate.

Following the 1st Extraordinary Session (UNESCO, 2014), the General Assembly amended its Rules of Procedures in order to achieve the goal of an equitable geographical and cultural representation on the World Heritage Committee, through the allocation of seats by region (defined with reference to UNESCO’s electoral groups) on the World Heritage Committee.

For more details please refer to Article 14 of the Rules of Procedures.

As per Rule 13.1 of the Rules of procedure of the General Assembly, candidatures should be sent to the Secretariat at least six weeks prior to the opening of the General Assembly.

Candidatures should be sent to the following address by 6 October 2015:
The Director
UNESCO World Heritage Centre
7 place de Fontenoy
75352 Paris 07 SP, France
Tel: +33 (0) 1 45 68 13 15

As per article 16.5 of the Convention:

"Any State Party to the Convention which is in arrears with the payment of its compulsory or voluntary contribution for the current year and the calendar year immediately preceding it shall not be eligible as a Member of the World Heritage Committee, although this provision shall not apply to the first election."

No, according to the new Rules of Procedure adopted by the General Assembly in November 2014. However, the new Rules of Procedure state that “at each election, due consideration shall be given to the election of at least one State Party which has never served as a Member of the World Heritage Committee".

See Statistics on States Parties.

Please refer to Rule 14 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Assembly: "Election of the members of the World Heritage Committee" 

All relevant documentation is available at the following web address : whc.unesco.org/en/documents   (select the year, the session, the document reference or the title of the document ....)