One part of the theme ”ethics and folklorism” concerns the ethnologist and his/her research, the other one folklorism itself.
Ethics is not a frequented word in the other part, although this
phenomenon - because of its importance it has in the society -
would deserve it. In the dominating part of the entire phase of
folklorism, there is no extensive awareness of ethical effect of several activities. Today, it is very difficult to differ in particular regions or locations, what has survived as a relic of older
traditions, what has been included in them for various reasons, how the first arrangers, choreographers, whose results were often passed off as transmissions of original materials, proceeded at their flights of imaginations. The phenomenon that we could call as “folk culture free for use” remains big problem as well. Here we are also missing an ethica codex that, however, does not concern just ethnology. The general need for ethics in relation to cultural tradition is not deep-rooted at all by us. It is a widely social matter and it should concern cultural tradition in the legal sense of the word - not to exploit it, not to misuse it commercially, to understand it as a part of national culture. In addition to the research principles, it is thus necessary to promote generally the fact that nobody may behave destructively or unethically to cultural heritage of any nature.
The issue of ethics is reflected in all UNESCO conventions.
For ethnology, Convention on Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Convention on the Protection and Promotion of
the Diversity Cultural Expressions, Convention on the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage are the most important ones. UNESCO is based on faith in universal values on which it also builds itsattitude to ethical aspects of the research. It tries to establish common values and criteria for all countries, taking into a
special account the development countries. It is the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that deals with the issue
of ethics in relation to traditional knowledge, traditional cultural
expressions, and folklore. The most important aspects for the
protection of cultural heritage include the respect for cultural
diversity among nations, and the protection from the misuse of
traditional knowledge and awareness including their
commercialization.