How the Sites are Nominated As UNESCO World Heritage sites: How the Process Works?
Only those countries that have signed the World Heritage Convention-blaze the trail for several countries in their effort to protect cultural and natural heritage can nominate the property on their territory to be considered for inclusion in the World Heritage List by UNESCO.
The World Heritage sites selected up to 2004 together were placed within six cultural and four natural criteria. Following the adoption of the revised Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, there is now only one set of ten criteria.
The selection process involves 5 steps.The Nomination Process goes as follows:

1: TENTATIVE LIST
Each country maintains a list of significant cultural and natural sites within its territory. This list, called the Tentative List, provides a preview of sites that may potentially be nominated for the next 5 to 10 years. Only sites on this list can be considered on the World Heritage List. It is an important step since the World Heritage Committee cannot consider a nomination for inscription on the World Heritage List unless the property has already been included on the State Party’s Tentative List.
2: NOMINATION FILE
By preparing a Tentative List and selecting sites from it, a State Party can plan when to present a nomination file to World Heritage Centre. In other words the detailed proposal for a particular site is drawn up by the countries from the Tentative List. World Heritage Centre review the nomination file to make sure whether these proposals contain the necessary documentation, maps, and other requirements. Once a nomination file is complete the World Heritage Center sends it to the appropriate Advisory Bodies for evaluation.
3: ADVISORY BODIES
A nominated property is subjected to an independent evaluation by two advisory bodies designated by the World Heritage Convention: the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN). This is so that these advisory bodies can provide the World Heritage Committee with evaluations on the cultural sites and the natural ones. The third advisory body is the International Center for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), an intergovernmental organization which provides the Committee with expert advice on the conservation of cultural sites, as well as on training activities.
4: World Heritage Committee
Once they are nominated and evaluated, it will be the intergovernmental World Heritage Committee that has the final word in deciding the inscription of a site. Once every year, the Committee meets to approve which sites will be inscribed on the World Heritage List. It can equally postpone a decision and seek additional information from States Parties regarding certain sites.
5: CRITERIA FOR SELECTION
To be included on the World Heritage List, sites must be of outstanding universal value and meet at least one out of the selection criteria. The ten selection criteria are listed as follows:
1. To represent a masterpiece of human creative genius.
2. To exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design.
3. To bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared.
4. To be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history.
5. To be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change.
6. To be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance. (The Committee considers that this criterion should preferably be used in conjunction with other criteria).
7. To contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance.
8. To be outstanding examples representing major stages of earth’s history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features.
9. To be outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals.
10. To contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.