scholarly journals International legal foundations of responsibility for international crimes against cultural heritage in conditions of armed conflicts

Legal Ukraine ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 67-72
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Bazov

The article is devoted to the analysis of issues of international legal provision of responsibility for international crimes in the field of protection of cultural values. The main international legal acts and case law in this area are analyzed. Proposals for improving international and domestic legal acts are provided. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ideal of a free human person free from fear and need can only be realized if conditions are created in which everyone can enjoy their economic, social, cultural and political rights. Understanding the systemic nature of these rights implies the creation of appropriate conditions for their implementation at both national and international levels, including in the field of judicial protection. As the realization of economic, social, political and cultural rights is complex, systemic, the issues of preservation and protection of cultural values have recently become especially important, as it applies not only to the state in which they are located, but also to all peoples of the world. Thus, the preservation and protection of cultural heritage sites, especially in armed conflicts, is a matter not only of an individual state, but of the entire international community. As you know, issues of protection of cultural values are constantly in the field of view of the international community. In particular, these issues were reflected in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, especially in the Hague Regulations of 1907. The most important international legal act on the preservation and treatment of cultural heritage sites in armed conflict is the Hague Convention of 14 May 1954 on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its Additional Protocols of 1954 and 1999, respectively, which is perceived as a universally recognized universal set of norms in the field of protection of cultural values. Key words: international criminal court, cultural values, cultural heritage, international crimes.

Author(s):  
Danil Sergeev

The article evaluates current conditions of international criminalization of offences relating to cultural property and makes a brief historical review of developing international protection of cultural property and elaborating a corresponding notion. Having analyzed the international instruments, the author concludes that offences relating to cultural property may include deliberate seizure, appropriation, demolition as well as any other forms of destruction or damage to objects and items protected under the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict committed during international and non-international armed conflicts. These offences do not include such possible acts toward universal cultural values committed either beyond any armed conflict or without direct connection with it. Taking the examples of destruction of Buddhas of Bamiyan, Nimrud, Palmyra, and mausoleums of Timbuktu, the author states that international criminalization of offences relating to cultural property is insufficient, because it does not encompass such cases when objects or items of cultural value are damaged or destroyed under the control of national administrations or with their knowledge.


1992 ◽  
Vol 267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Angel Corzo

ABSTRACTThe UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, signed at the Hague in 1954, is a document that reflects 20th century thinking on the means to safeguard the world's cultural heritage. It is our task to transform it into one that anticipates the challenges of the 21st century. First, then, we should pay homage to those individuals who had the spirit and the resolve to formulate the Convention and its Protocol. Second, we should admit that the Convention's effectiveness has been minimized in the past, largely due to a Euclidean conceptualization of the problem when in fact during war the axioms become spontaneously non-Euclidean, non-linear and highly chaotic. Clearly there is a need to reevaluate its premises in fresh ways, and to strengthen it in the context of the New Age that shall define the future.


1999 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 63-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Desch

On 26 March 1999, the Diplomatic Conference on the Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (hereinafter, 1954 Convention), held in The Hague from 15 to 26 March 1999, adopted a Second Protocol to that Convention. The reasons leading to the elaboration and adoption of the Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (hereinafter, Second Protocol) are manifold.Firstly, armed conflicts that have taken place since the entry into force of the 1954 Convention, such as in Cambodia, the Middle East or the former Yugoslavia, have revealed its deficiencies. In particular, the Convention lacked full application, as most of the armed conflicts have been of a non-international character; furthermore, it lacked proper implementation, as the system of execution of the Convention, which is based on a functioning Protecting Power-and Commissioner General-system, proved to be unworkable in practice; and, finally, it lacked adequate provisions to cope with the extensive and systematic destruction of cultural property during armed conflict, as it contains no mandatory criminal sanctions regime.


nauka.me ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Olesia Gretskaia

The article focuses on the international activities of UNESCO (2015-2017) to protect the world cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria from the devastating consequences of armed conflicts and terrorist attacks. The author pays special attention to aspects of the Organization's strategy for the prevention of the destruction of World Heritage sites (or their restoration) and the suppress of the illegal trade of cultural property. This strategy includes establishing cooperation with other international organizations and states, and the article gives examples of international contacts on the protection of cultural heritage.


2020 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-384
Author(s):  
Leva J. Wenzel

AbstractOver the past decades, cultural heritage has increasingly become a primary target of terrorist destruction. As such attacks not only hit the cultural objects themselves, but also people and societies inherently associated with them, this article calls for a shift of emphasis in protection of cultural property from mere material substance protection to the relationship between humans and cultural objects. To this end, the present work rethinks cultural heritage as a hybrid entity between legal object and legal person, i. e., as material agency. The article takes a critical view of the traditional juridical distinction between legal object (res) and legal person (persona), and of material and immaterial cultural heritage. By taking full advantage of the legal potential of these four aspects, and reflecting on the recent ruling of the International Criminal Court in The Hague regarding the terrorist destruction of Timbuktu, the article provides a springboard toward an anthropological transformation of the protection of cultural property.


Author(s):  
Bayu Sujadmiko ◽  
Desia Rakhma Banjarani ◽  
Rudi Natamiharja ◽  
Desy Churul Aini

The cultural property becomes objects of destruction in armed conflicts, such as Syria and Iraq, which were carried out by ISIS squads (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). For ISIS’s actions, the ICC should judge ISIS. However, new problems will arise regarding the jurisdiction of the ICC to judge ISIS. Based on the explanation of this background, the question will arise: How are humanitarian law regulations related to protecting cultural property during armed conflict? And what is the regulation of the ICC’s jurisdiction over the protection of cultural property in armed conflict by ISIS? The research in this article is normative legal research with the statue approach. According to humanitarian law, the research results show that the regulations relating to the protection of cultural property during armed conflict are contained in the 1954 Hague Convention, Additional Protocol I and Additional Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions of 1977. The destruction of cultural property carried out by ISIS is included in war crimes, one of the Rome Statute material jurisdictions. In this case, the Rome Statute applied by the ICC has juridical power to uphold justice and punish, including war crimes committed by ISIS. For the destruction of various cultural property in Iraq and Syria, ISIS can be judge by the ICC through a referral by the UN Security Council based on the provisions stipulated in the 1998 Rome Statute.  


1998 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 313-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Hladik

The end of the Cold War and the disappearance of bipolarity have resulted in a recrudescence of a number of armed conflicts in the world, in particular in the ex-Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union. Such conflicts have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law of armed conflicts and a loss of respect for human lives and cultural heritage. They have also demonstrated deficiencies in the implementation of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict — the only comprehensive international agreement aimed specifically at protecting movable and immovable cultural heritage in the event of armed conflict.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 33-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nour A. Munawar

Cultural heritage has fallen under the threat of being of damaged and/or erased due to armed conflicts, and destruction has increasingly become a major part of daily news all over the world. The destruction of cultural heritage has escalated in Syria as the ongoing armed conflict has spread to World Heritage Sites, such as Palmyra and the old city of Aleppo. The devastation of Syria’s war has deliberately and systematically targeted archaeological monuments dating from the prehistoric, Byzantine, Roman, and Islamic periods, with no distinction being made of the cultural, historical, and socio-economic significance of such sites. The violence of this conflict is not, of course, limited to the destruction of cultural property, and has first and foremost served to introduce non-state radical actors, such as Daesh, who targeted local people, archaeological site, museum staff and facilities. The destruction and re-purposing of monuments in Syria, such as Daesh’s attempts to turn churches into mosques, are heavy-handed attempts to re-write history by erasing physical evidence. In this paper, I explore the semantics of continuous attempts to reconstruct cultural heritage sites, destroyed by Daesh, during the ongoing war, and how the destruction and reconstruction of Syria’s heritage have been deployed to serve political agendas.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-97
Author(s):  
Akbar Kurnia Putra ◽  
Bernard Sipahutar ◽  
Vrandza Iswenanda ◽  
Sulhi Muhammad Daud

This article aims to overview how the International Humanitarian Law regulates the protection of cultural heritages at the event of armed conflict. Applying a normative legal method, this article coclude that the protection for the cultural objects during an armed conflict is regulated in the Hague Convention IV of 1907, the Geneva Conventions IV of 1949, the Hague Convention of 1954, and the Second Protocols to the Hague Convention of 1954 for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict 1999. The Hague Convention of 1954 mentions about safeguarding of the cultural property from any harm as a result of armed conflicts and about respect for the cultural objects. Each nation is responsible to avoid, prevent, and forbid any harfmul acts against cultural property. However, no stipulation is mentioned on how the victims whose cultural objects are destroyed could sue for any destructions. Therefore it is recommended that a special International Body be formed to supervise any harmful activities toward the cultural objects. Such a body might be more than just an International Court of Justice whose function is to settle any objections, sues, or claims from parties whose cultural objecs have been destroyed during armed conflicts.


1994 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard J. Tanja

On May 14, 1954 the Inter-governmental Conference on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict which convened in The Hague, managed to adopt the text of the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954 Hague Convention). Apart from the Convention as such, the Regulations for the Execution of the Convention, a Protocol directed towards the prevention of the exportation of cultural property from occupied territories during armed conflicts, and three Resolutions were adopted.


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