Cultural heritage law has a complicated relationship with the past. On the one hand, the field seeks to protect the ‘past’ for future generations through the act of heritage preservation. How ever, the state in which the ‘past’ needs to be transmitted to future generations is in itself a dynamic concept which has changed over time, influenced by evolving notions of ‘authenticity’ and ‘integrity’, alongside changing professional sensitivities. As such, in the present-day, the international law of culture is as much concerned with the relationship between people and their heritage in the here and now, rather than with mediating between the past and present. In these debates, the future moreover often recedes to the background.