United States, UNESCO, and International Relations through Cultural Heritage United States, UNESCO, and International Relations through Cultural Heritage

As tensions escalate in the Middle East, US President Donald Trump has threatened to strike targets in Iran should they seek to retaliate over the killing of Qassem Soleimani. According to the president’s tweet, these sites includes those that are ‘important to Iran and Iranian culture’.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper was quick on Monday to rule out any such action and acknowledged that the US would ‘follow the laws of armed conflict’. But Trump has not since commented further on the matter.

Any move to target Iranian cultural heritage could constitute a breach of the international laws protecting cultural property. Attacks on cultural sites are deemed unlawful under two United Nations conventions; the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property during Armed Conflict, and the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.

These have established deliberate attacks on cultural heritage (when not militarily necessary) as a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in recognition of the irreparable damage that the loss of cultural heritage can have locally, regionally and globally.

These conventions were established in the aftermath of the Second World War, in reaction to the legacy of the massive destruction of cultural property that took place, including the intense bombing of cities, and systematic plunder of artworks across Europe. The conventions recognize that damage to the cultural property of any people means ‘damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind’. The intention of these is to establish a new norm whereby protecting culture and history – that includes cultural and historical property – is as important as safeguarding people.

Such historical sites are important not simply as a matter of buildings and statues, but rather for their symbolic significance in a people’s history and identity. Destroying cultural artefacts is a direct attack on the identity of the population that values them, erasing their memories and historical legacy. Following the heavy bombing of Dresden during the Second World War, one resident summed up the psychological impact of such destruction in observing that ‘you expect people to die, but you don’t expect the buildings to die’.

Targeting sites of cultural significance isn’t just an act of intimidation during conflict. It can also have a lasting effect far beyond the cessation of violence, hampering post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction, where ruins or the absence of previously significant cultural monuments act as a lasting physical reminder of hostilities.

For example, during the Bosnian War in the 1990s, the Old Bridge in Mostar represented a symbol of centuries of shared cultural heritage and peaceful co-existence between the Serbian and Croat communities. The bridge’s destruction in 1993 at the height of the civil war and the temporary cable bridge which took its place acted as a lasting reminder of the bitter hostilities, prompting its reconstruction a decade later as a mark of the reunification of the ethnically divided town.

More recently, the destruction of cultural property has been a feature of terrorist organizations, such as the Taliban’s demolition of the 1,700-year-old Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001, eliciting international condemnation. Similarly, in Iraq in 2014 following ISIS’s seizure of the city of Mosul, the terrorist group set about systematically destroying a number of cultural sites, including the Great Mosque of al-Nuri with its leaning minaret, which had stood since 1172. And in Syria, the ancient city of Palmyra was destroyed by ISIS in 2015, who attacked its archaeological sites with bulldozers and explosives.

Such violations go beyond destruction: they include the looting of archaeological sites and trafficking of cultural objects, which are used to finance terrorist activities, which are also prohibited under the 1954 Hague Convention.

As a war crime, the destruction of cultural property has been successfully prosecuted in the International Criminal Court, which sentenced Ahmad Al-Faqi Al-Mahdi to nine years in jail in 2016 for his part in the destruction of the Timbuktu mausoleums in Mali. Mahdi led members of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb to destroy mausoleums and monuments of cultural and religious importance in Timbuktu, irreversibly erasing what the chief prosecutor described as ‘the embodiment of Malian history captured in tangible form from an era long gone’.

Targeting cultural property is prohibited under customary international humanitarian law, not only by the Hague Convention. But the Convention sets out detailed regulations for protection of such property, and it has taken some states a lot of time to provide for these.

Although the UK was an original signatory to the 1954 Hague Convention, it did not ratify it until 2017, introducing into law the Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Act 2017, and setting up the Cultural Protection Fund to safeguard heritage of international importance threatened by conflict in countries across the Middle East and North Africa.

Ostensibly, the UK’s delay in ratifying the convention lay in concerns over the definition of key terms and adequate criminal sanctions, which were addressed in the Second Protocol in 1999. However, changing social attitudes towards the plunder of antiquities, and an alarming increase in the use of cultural destruction as a weapon of war by extremist groups to eliminate cultures that do not align with their own ideology, eventually compelled the UK to act.

In the US, it is notoriously difficult to get the necessary majority for the approval of any treaty in the Senate; for the Hague Convention, approval was achieved in 2008, following which the US ratified the Convention in 2009.

Destroying the buildings and monuments which form the common heritage of humanity is to wipe out the physical record of who we are. People are people within a place, and they draw meaning about who they are from their surroundings. Religious buildings, historical sites, works of art, monuments and historic artefacts all tell the story of who we are and how we got here. We have a responsibility to protect them.

As tensions escalate in the Middle East, US President Donald Trump has threatened to strike targets in Iran should they seek to retaliate over the killing of Qassem Soleimani. According to the president’s tweet, these sites includes those that are ‘important to Iran and Iranian culture’.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper was quick on Monday to rule out any such action and acknowledged that the US would ‘follow the laws of armed conflict’. But Trump has not since commented further on the matter.

Any move to target Iranian cultural heritage could constitute a breach of the international laws protecting cultural property. Attacks on cultural sites are deemed unlawful under two United Nations conventions; the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property during Armed Conflict, and the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.

These have established deliberate attacks on cultural heritage (when not militarily necessary) as a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in recognition of the irreparable damage that the loss of cultural heritage can have locally, regionally and globally.

These conventions were established in the aftermath of the Second World War, in reaction to the legacy of the massive destruction of cultural property that took place, including the intense bombing of cities, and systematic plunder of artworks across Europe. The conventions recognize that damage to the cultural property of any people means ‘damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind’. The intention of these is to establish a new norm whereby protecting culture and history – that includes cultural and historical property – is as important as safeguarding people.

Such historical sites are important not simply as a matter of buildings and statues, but rather for their symbolic significance in a people’s history and identity. Destroying cultural artefacts is a direct attack on the identity of the population that values them, erasing their memories and historical legacy. Following the heavy bombing of Dresden during the Second World War, one resident summed up the psychological impact of such destruction in observing that ‘you expect people to die, but you don’t expect the buildings to die’.

Targeting sites of cultural significance isn’t just an act of intimidation during conflict. It can also have a lasting effect far beyond the cessation of violence, hampering post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction, where ruins or the absence of previously significant cultural monuments act as a lasting physical reminder of hostilities.

For example, during the Bosnian War in the 1990s, the Old Bridge in Mostar represented a symbol of centuries of shared cultural heritage and peaceful co-existence between the Serbian and Croat communities. The bridge’s destruction in 1993 at the height of the civil war and the temporary cable bridge which took its place acted as a lasting reminder of the bitter hostilities, prompting its reconstruction a decade later as a mark of the reunification of the ethnically divided town.

More recently, the destruction of cultural property has been a feature of terrorist organizations, such as the Taliban’s demolition of the 1,700-year-old Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001, eliciting international condemnation. Similarly, in Iraq in 2014 following ISIS’s seizure of the city of Mosul, the terrorist group set about systematically destroying a number of cultural sites, including the Great Mosque of al-Nuri with its leaning minaret, which had stood since 1172. And in Syria, the ancient city of Palmyra was destroyed by ISIS in 2015, who attacked its archaeological sites with bulldozers and explosives.

Such violations go beyond destruction: they include the looting of archaeological sites and trafficking of cultural objects, which are used to finance terrorist activities, which are also prohibited under the 1954 Hague Convention.

As a war crime, the destruction of cultural property has been successfully prosecuted in the International Criminal Court, which sentenced Ahmad Al-Faqi Al-Mahdi to nine years in jail in 2016 for his part in the destruction of the Timbuktu mausoleums in Mali. Mahdi led members of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb to destroy mausoleums and monuments of cultural and religious importance in Timbuktu, irreversibly erasing what the chief prosecutor described as ‘the embodiment of Malian history captured in tangible form from an era long gone’.

Targeting cultural property is prohibited under customary international humanitarian law, not only by the Hague Convention. But the Convention sets out detailed regulations for protection of such property, and it has taken some states a lot of time to provide for these.

Although the UK was an original signatory to the 1954 Hague Convention, it did not ratify it until 2017, introducing into law the Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Act 2017, and setting up the Cultural Protection Fund to safeguard heritage of international importance threatened by conflict in countries across the Middle East and North Africa.

Ostensibly, the UK’s delay in ratifying the convention lay in concerns over the definition of key terms and adequate criminal sanctions, which were addressed in the Second Protocol in 1999. However, changing social attitudes towards the plunder of antiquities, and an alarming increase in the use of cultural destruction as a weapon of war by extremist groups to eliminate cultures that do not align with their own ideology, eventually compelled the UK to act.

In the US, it is notoriously difficult to get the necessary majority for the approval of any treaty in the Senate; for the Hague Convention, approval was achieved in 2008, following which the US ratified the Convention in 2009.

Destroying the buildings and monuments which form the common heritage of humanity is to wipe out the physical record of who we are. People are people within a place, and they draw meaning about who they are from their surroundings. Religious buildings, historical sites, works of art, monuments and historic artefacts all tell the story of who we are and how we got here. We have a responsibility to protect them.

Violations against cultural property – such as archaeological treasures, artworks, museums or historical sites – can be no less detrimental to the survival of a nation than the physical persecution of its people. These assaults on heritage ensure the hegemony of some nations and distort the imprint of other nations in world history, sometimes to the point of eradication.

As contemporary armed conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and Yemen demonstrate, cultural property violations are not only a matter of the colonial past; they continue to be perpetrated, often in new, intricate ways.

Understandably, from a moral perspective, it is more often the suffering of persons, rather than any kind of ‘cultural’ destruction, that receives the most attention from humanitarian aid providers, the media or the courts. Indeed, the extent of the damage caused by an assault on cultural property is not always immediately evident, but the result can be a threat to the survival of a people. This is strikingly exemplified by what is currently happening in Crimea.

Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula has been occupied by Russia since February 2014, meaning that, under international law, the two states have been involved in an international armed conflict for the last six years.

While much attention has been paid to the alleged war crimes perpetrated by the occupying power, reports by international organizations and the International Criminal Court (ICC) have been less vocal on the issue of cultural property in Crimea. Where they do raise it, they tend to confine their findings to the issue of misappropriation.

However, as part of its larger policy of the annexation and Russification of the peninsula and its history, Russia has gone far beyond misappropriation.

Crimean artefacts have been transferred to Russia – without security justification or Ukrainian authorization as required by the international law of occupation – to be showcased at exhibitions celebrating Russia’s own cultural heritage. In 2016, the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow staged its record-breaking Aivazovsky exhibition, which included 38 artworks from the Aivazovsky Museum in the Crimean town of Feodosia.

Other ‘cultural’ violations in the region include numerous unsanctioned archaeological excavations, whose findings are often unlawfully exported to Russia or end up on the black market.

There is also the example of Russia’s plan to establish a museum of Christianity in Ukraine’s UNESCO World Heritage site, the Ancient City of Tauric Chersonese. This is an indication of Russia’s policy of asserting itself as a bastion of Orthodox Christianity and culture in the Slavic world, with Crimea as one of the centres.

The harmful effects of Russia’s destructive cultural property policy can be seen in the situation of the Crimean Tatars, Ukraine’s indigenous Muslim people. Already depleted by a Stalin-ordered deportation in 1944 and previously repressed by the Russian Empire, the Crimean Tatars are now facing the destruction of much of the remainder of their heritage.

For example, Muslim burial grounds have been demolished to build the Tavrida Highway, which leads to the newly built Kerch Bridge connecting the peninsula to Russia.

The destructive reconstruction of the 16th-century Bakhchysarai Palace – the only remaining complete architectural ensemble of the indigenous people, included in the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List – is another example of how the very identity of the Crimean Tatars is being threatened. This reconstruction is being conducted by a team with no experience of cultural sites, in a manner that erodes its authenticity and historical value – which is precisely as Russia intends.

There is a solid body of international and domestic law covering Russia’s treatment of Crimea’s cultural property.

Under the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict – ratified by both Ukraine and Russia – the occupying power must facilitate the safeguarding efforts of the national authorities in occupied territories. States parties must prevent any vandalism or misappropriation of cultural property, and, according to the first protocol of the convention, the occupying power is required to prevent any export of artefacts from the occupied territory.

The 1907 Hague Regulations and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention confirm that the authentic domestic legislation continues to apply in occupied territories. This leaves Russia with no excuse for non-compliance with Ukraine’s cultural property laws and imposing its own rules unless absolutely necessary.

Besides, both Ukrainian and Russian criminal codes penalise pillage in occupied territory, as well as unsanctioned archaeological excavations. As an occupying power, Russia must not just abstain from such wrongdoings in Crimea, but also duly investigate and prosecute the alleged misconduct.

The clarity of the international legal situation demonstrates that no exhibitions in continental Russia and no archaeological excavations which are not sanctioned by Ukraine can be justified. Likewise, any renovation or use of cultural sites, especially those on permanent or tentative UNESCO lists, must only be conducted pursuant to consultancy with and approval of the Ukrainian authorities.

But the resonance of the Crimean case goes beyond law and touches on issues of the very survival of a people. The Soviet deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944 did not only result in the deaths of individuals. Their footprints in Crimea have been gradually erased by baseless treason charges, the long exile of the indigenous community from their native lands and ongoing persecution.

First the Soviet Union and now Russia have targeted the Crimean Tatars’ cultural heritage to undermine their significance in the general historical narrative, making attempts to preserve or celebrate this culture seem futile. Russia is thus imposing its own historical and political hegemony at the expense of the Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian layers of Crimean history.

As exemplified by occupied Crimea, the manipulation and exploitation of cultural heritage can serve an occupying power’s wider policies of appropriating history and asserting its own dominance. Domestic cultural property proceedings are challenging due to the lack of access to the occupied territory, but they should still be pursued.

More effort is needed in the following areas: case prioritization; informing the documenters of alleged violations about the spectrum of cultural property crimes; developing domestic investigative and prosecutorial capacity, including by involving foreign expert consultancy; more proactively seeking bilateral and multilateral cooperation in art crime cases; liaising with auction houses (to track down objects originating from war-affected areas) and museums (to prevent the exhibition of the artefacts from occupied territories).

When possible, cultural property crimes should also be reported to the ICC.

Additionally, more international – public, policy, media and jurisprudential – attention to such violations is needed. Societies, courts and policymakers should have a clearer awareness that assaults against cultural heritage constitute a creeping encroachment on a people’s identity, endangering its very survival.

Violations against cultural property – such as archaeological treasures, artworks, museums or historical sites – can be no less detrimental to the survival of a nation than the physical persecution of its people. These assaults on heritage ensure the hegemony of some nations and distort the imprint of other nations in world history, sometimes to the point of eradication.

As contemporary armed conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and Yemen demonstrate, cultural property violations are not only a matter of the colonial past; they continue to be perpetrated, often in new, intricate ways.

Understandably, from a moral perspective, it is more often the suffering of persons, rather than any kind of ‘cultural’ destruction, that receives the most attention from humanitarian aid providers, the media or the courts. Indeed, the extent of the damage caused by an assault on cultural property is not always immediately evident, but the result can be a threat to the survival of a people. This is strikingly exemplified by what is currently happening in Crimea.

Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula has been occupied by Russia since February 2014, meaning that, under international law, the two states have been involved in an international armed conflict for the last six years.

While much attention has been paid to the alleged war crimes perpetrated by the occupying power, reports by international organizations and the International Criminal Court (ICC) have been less vocal on the issue of cultural property in Crimea. Where they do raise it, they tend to confine their findings to the issue of misappropriation.

However, as part of its larger policy of the annexation and Russification of the peninsula and its history, Russia has gone far beyond misappropriation.

Crimean artefacts have been transferred to Russia – without security justification or Ukrainian authorization as required by the international law of occupation – to be showcased at exhibitions celebrating Russia’s own cultural heritage. In 2016, the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow staged its record-breaking Aivazovsky exhibition, which included 38 artworks from the Aivazovsky Museum in the Crimean town of Feodosia.

Other ‘cultural’ violations in the region include numerous unsanctioned archaeological excavations, whose findings are often unlawfully exported to Russia or end up on the black market.

There is also the example of Russia’s plan to establish a museum of Christianity in Ukraine’s UNESCO World Heritage site, the Ancient City of Tauric Chersonese. This is an indication of Russia’s policy of asserting itself as a bastion of Orthodox Christianity and culture in the Slavic world, with Crimea as one of the centres.

The harmful effects of Russia’s destructive cultural property policy can be seen in the situation of the Crimean Tatars, Ukraine’s indigenous Muslim people. Already depleted by a Stalin-ordered deportation in 1944 and previously repressed by the Russian Empire, the Crimean Tatars are now facing the destruction of much of the remainder of their heritage.

For example, Muslim burial grounds have been demolished to build the Tavrida Highway, which leads to the newly built Kerch Bridge connecting the peninsula to Russia.

The destructive reconstruction of the 16th-century Bakhchysarai Palace – the only remaining complete architectural ensemble of the indigenous people, included in the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List – is another example of how the very identity of the Crimean Tatars is being threatened. This reconstruction is being conducted by a team with no experience of cultural sites, in a manner that erodes its authenticity and historical value – which is precisely as Russia intends.

There is a solid body of international and domestic law covering Russia’s treatment of Crimea’s cultural property.

Under the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict – ratified by both Ukraine and Russia – the occupying power must facilitate the safeguarding efforts of the national authorities in occupied territories. States parties must prevent any vandalism or misappropriation of cultural property, and, according to the first protocol of the convention, the occupying power is required to prevent any export of artefacts from the occupied territory.

The 1907 Hague Regulations and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention confirm that the authentic domestic legislation continues to apply in occupied territories. This leaves Russia with no excuse for non-compliance with Ukraine’s cultural property laws and imposing its own rules unless absolutely necessary.

Besides, both Ukrainian and Russian criminal codes penalise pillage in occupied territory, as well as unsanctioned archaeological excavations. As an occupying power, Russia must not just abstain from such wrongdoings in Crimea, but also duly investigate and prosecute the alleged misconduct.

The clarity of the international legal situation demonstrates that no exhibitions in continental Russia and no archaeological excavations which are not sanctioned by Ukraine can be justified. Likewise, any renovation or use of cultural sites, especially those on permanent or tentative UNESCO lists, must only be conducted pursuant to consultancy with and approval of the Ukrainian authorities.

But the resonance of the Crimean case goes beyond law and touches on issues of the very survival of a people. The Soviet deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944 did not only result in the deaths of individuals. Their footprints in Crimea have been gradually erased by baseless treason charges, the long exile of the indigenous community from their native lands and ongoing persecution.

First the Soviet Union and now Russia have targeted the Crimean Tatars’ cultural heritage to undermine their significance in the general historical narrative, making attempts to preserve or celebrate this culture seem futile. Russia is thus imposing its own historical and political hegemony at the expense of the Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian layers of Crimean history.

As exemplified by occupied Crimea, the manipulation and exploitation of cultural heritage can serve an occupying power’s wider policies of appropriating history and asserting its own dominance. Domestic cultural property proceedings are challenging due to the lack of access to the occupied territory, but they should still be pursued.

More effort is needed in the following areas: case prioritization; informing the documenters of alleged violations about the spectrum of cultural property crimes; developing domestic investigative and prosecutorial capacity, including by involving foreign expert consultancy; more proactively seeking bilateral and multilateral cooperation in art crime cases; liaising with auction houses (to track down objects originating from war-affected areas) and museums (to prevent the exhibition of the artefacts from occupied territories).

When possible, cultural property crimes should also be reported to the ICC.

Additionally, more international – public, policy, media and jurisprudential – attention to such violations is needed. Societies, courts and policymakers should have a clearer awareness that assaults against cultural heritage constitute a creeping encroachment on a people’s identity, endangering its very survival.