Nigeria is better placed than many to respond to the arrival of the coronavirus disease. In 2014, it successfully contained a deadly Ebola virus outbreak and the country’s current score on the Epidemic Preparedness Index (38.9 per cent) is higher than the African and global averages.

But the outbreak is compounding Nigeria’s numerous pre-existing crises. It was already grappling with a Lassa fever outbreak that has claimed more than one hundred lives in 2020, the aftermath of recession, and conflict and insecurity within its borders.

Effective leadership to build confidence will be vital. However, President Muhammadu Buhari has made few appearances, delivering his first speech on Nigeria’s response more than one month after the country’s first recorded case. And the indefinite suspension of meetings of the Federal Executive Council has raised questions on the efficacy of the response.

Extended lockdown imposed

The recent loss of President Buhari’s steadfast chief of staff Abba Kyari as a result of contracting COVID-19 is a further significant setback for the presidency. But the administration has established a presidential task force to develop a national strategy and an extended lockdown has been imposed on the most affected states – Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja. The country has also closed national borders and is expanding testing capacity to 1,500 per day.

However, when Nigeria’s first case was recorded on February 27 it was state governments that initially took action – shutting schools, closing state borders and imposing lockdowns. Going forwards, the 36 state governments will have a key role to play although their governance capacity and commitment varies widely.

The federal government has released $2.7 million to support the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), and promised an additional $18 million – but this falls well short of the estimated $330 million needed to tackle the coronavirus disease in Nigeria. The government is looking to its private sector to help make up the difference. The country’s finances are under severe pressure with Nigerian crude oil – the main source of government revenue and foreign exchange reserves – selling for as low as $12 or $13 a barrel (with production costs of around $22 per barrel), and a debt servicing to revenue ratio of more than 50 per cent even before the oil price crash.

Facing its second recession in four years, with -3.4 per cent GDP growth forecast by the IMF, the country has little economic resilience. Nigeria will not be able to sustain restrictions on its 81.15 million-strong workforce, 83.2 per cent of which operate in the informal sector. One area at particular risk is food security, as the pandemic is disrupting farming, supply chains and trade. By building on past benefit programmes, the federal government is providing cash and distributing food to vulnerable households, but this important effort is being hampered by poor communication, inefficiencies and a lack of transparency – longstanding challenges in many aspects of public service delivery in Nigeria.

In the absence of a reliable social safety net, Nigerians trust and rely on their families, communities and the informal economy to see them through difficult times. It is these informal mechanisms that lend Nigeria its oft-referenced resilience, which has enabled society to function and continue while a largely disconnected political class has focused on self-enrichment.

It is through these traditional channels that the government will need to deliver information, support, testing and treatment. But without high levels of trust, the administration may find it difficult to do so. Many Nigerians initially considered the pandemic a hoax, some describing it as a ‘rich man’s disease’, while others see it as another conspiracy by politicians to loot the treasury.

Lockdown measures have also heightened tensions across the country. Some citizens are rebelling and in one instance burned down a police station in response to the closure of mosques in Katsina state. Marking a further breakdown in the relationship between the population and its leaders, the Nigerian National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) recently reported security services enforcing the lockdown have extrajudicially killed 18 people, while, so far, COVID-19 has killed 25 people in Nigeria.

Mitigating the spread and worst consequences of the virus will depend on the state rebuilding trust with its citizens through effective communication and action. It is particularly important that the community mechanisms of support are protected as they come under growing pressure as communities become increasingly affected by the virus.

The stark choice facing most Nigerians – between risking starvation and risking contagion – means a sustained lockdown is not a tenable option. People will choose to go to work. This will especially be the case as people grow weary of measures imposed upon them by a state that the vast majority of the population believe does not serve or care for them.

Having largely ignored the needs of Nigeria’s citizens for decades, the political class face an uphill battle in building trust with the population. Earning this trust is not only crucial for the struggle against COVID-19 but also for Nigeria’s longer-term progress and system of political governance.

Russia’s military strategy is increasingly blurring the boundaries between war and peace. As the nature of warfare changes, the Kremlin is adapting its strategies to pursue conflict, especially through non-military means - below the threshold of armed violence. 

Russian military tactics are often mistaken for strategy in the West. Oscar Jonson, author of The Russian Understanding of War, will talk through this debate and explore how the Russian leadership now understands military strategy in the context of modern warfare. Mathieu Boulègue will address the more operational aspects of contemporary warfare for Russia, notably grey zone operations. 

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.

The development of governance in a wide range of digital spheres – from cyberspace to internet infrastructure to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) – is failing to match rapid advances in technical capabilities or the rise in security threats. This is leaving serious regulatory gaps, which means that instruments and mechanisms essential for protecting privacy and data, tackling cybercrime or establishing common ethical standards for AI, among many other imperatives, remain largely inadequate.

A starting point for effective policy formation is to recognize the essential complexity of the digital landscape, and the consequent importance of creating a ‘common language’ for multiple stakeholders (including under-represented actors such as smaller and/or developing countries, civil society and non-for-profit organizations).

The world’s evolving technological infrastructure is not a monolithic creation. In practice, it encompasses a highly diverse mix of elements – so-called ‘high-tech domains’,[1] hardware, systems, algorithms, protocols and standards – designed by a plethora of private companies, public bodies and non-profit organizations.[2] Varying cultural, economic and political assumptions have shaped where and which technologies have been deployed so far, and how they have been implemented.

Perhaps the most notable trend is the proliferation of techno-national regimes and private-sector policy initiatives, reflecting often-incompatible doctrines in respect of privacy, openness, inclusion and state control. Beyond governments, the interests and ambitions of prominent multinationals (notably the so-called ‘GAFAM’ tech giants in the West, and their ‘BATX’ counterparts in China)[3] are significant factors feeding into this debate.

Cyberspace and AI – two case studies

Two particular case studies highlight the essential challenges that this evolving – and, in some respects, still largely unformed – policy landscape presents. The first relates to cyberspace. Since 1998, Russia has established itself as a strong voice in the cyberspace governance debate – calling for a better understanding, at the UN level, of ICT developments and their impact on international security.

The country’s efforts were a precursor to the establishment in 2004 of a series of UN Groups of Governmental Experts (GGEs), aimed at strengthening the security of global information and telecommunications systems. These groups initially succeeded in developing common rules, norms and principles around some key issues. For example, the 2013 GGE meeting recognized that international law applies to the digital space and that its enforcement is essential for a secure, peaceful and accessible ICT environment.

However, the GGE process stalled in 2017, primarily due to fundamental disagreements between countries on the right to self-defence and on the applicability of international humanitarian law to cyber conflicts. The breakdown in talks reflected, in particular, the divide between two principal techno-ideological blocs: one, led by the US, the EU and like-minded states, advocating a global and open approach to the digital space; the other, led mainly by Russia and China, emphasizing a sovereignty-and-control model.

The divide was arguably entrenched in December 2018, with the passage of two resolutions at the UN General Assembly. A resolution sponsored by Russia created a working group to identify new norms and look into establishing regular institutional dialogue.

At the same time, a US-sponsored resolution established a GGE tasked, in part, with identifying ways to promote compliance with existing cyber norms. Each resolution was in line with its respective promoter’s stance on cyberspace. While some observers considered these resolutions potentially complementary, others saw in them competing campaigns to cement a preferred model as the global norm. Outside the UN, there have also been dozens of multilateral and bilateral accords with similar objectives, led by diverse stakeholders.[4]

The second case study concerns AI. Emerging policy in this sector suffers from an absence of global standards and a proliferation of proposed regulatory models. The potential ability of AI to deliver unprecedented capabilities in so many areas of human activity – from automation and language applications to warfare – means that it has become an area of intense rivalry between governments seeking technical and ideological leadership of this field.

China has by far the most ambitious programme. In 2017, its government released a three-step strategy for achieving global dominance in AI by 2030. Beijing aims to create an AI industry worth about RMB 1 trillion ($150 billion)[5] and is pushing for greater use of AI in areas ranging from military applications to the development of smart cities. Elsewhere, the US administration has issued an executive order on ‘maintaining American leadership on AI’.

On the other side of the Atlantic, at least 15 European countries (including France, Germany and the UK) have set up national AI plans. Although these strategies are essential for the development of policy infrastructure, they are country-specific and offer little in terms of global coordination. Ominously, greater inclusion and cooperation are scarcely mentioned, and remain the least prioritized policy areas.[6]

Competing multilateral frameworks on AI have also emerged. In April 2019, the European Commission published its ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI. Ministers from Nordic countries[7] recently issued their own declaration on collaboration in ‘AI in the Nordic-Baltic region’. And leaders of the G7 have committed to the ‘Charlevoix Common Vision for the Future of Artificial Intelligence’, which includes 12 guiding principles to ensure ‘human-centric AI’.

More recently, OECD member countries adopted a set of joint recommendations on AI. While nations outside the OECD were welcomed into the coalition – with Argentina, Brazil and Colombia adhering to the OECD’s newly established principles – China, India and Russia have yet to join the discussion. Despite their global aspirations, these emerging groups remain largely G7-led or EU-centric, and again highlight the divide between parallel models. 

The importance of ‘swing states’

No clear winner has emerged from among the competing visions for cyberspace and AI governance, nor indeed from the similar contests for doctrinal control in other digital domains. Concerns are rising that a so-called ‘splinternet’ may be inevitable – in which the internet fragments into separate open and closed spheres and cyber governance is similarly divided.

Each ideological camp is trying to build a critical mass of support by recruiting undecided states to its cause. Often referred to as ‘swing states’, the targets of these overtures are still in the process of developing their digital infrastructure and determining which regulatory and ethical frameworks they will apply. Yet the policy choices made by these countries could have a major influence on the direction of international digital governance in the future.

India offers a case in point. For now, the country seems to have chosen a versatile approach, engaging with actors on various sides of the policy debate, depending on the technology governance domain. On the one hand, its draft Personal Data Protection Bill mirrors principles in the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), suggesting a potential preference for the Western approach to data security.

However, in 2018, India was the leading country in terms of internet shutdowns, with over 100 reported incidents.[8] India has also chosen to collaborate outside the principal ideological blocs, as evidenced by an AI partnership it has entered into with the UAE. At the UN level, India has taken positions that support both blocs, although more often favouring the sovereignty-and-control approach.

Principles for rule-making

Sovereign nations have asserted aspirations for technological dominance with little heed to the cross-border implications of their policies. This drift towards a digital infrastructure fragmented by national regulation has potentially far-reaching societal and political consequences – and implies an urgent need for coordinated rule-making at the international level.

The lack of standards and enforcement mechanisms has created instability and increased vulnerabilities in democratic systems. In recent years, liberal democracies have been targeted by malevolent intrusions in their election systems and media sectors, and their critical infrastructure has come under increased threat. If Western nations cannot align around, and enforce, a normative framework that seeks to preserve individual privacy, openness and accountability through regulation, a growing number of governments may be drawn towards repressive forms of governance.

To mitigate those risks, efforts to negotiate a rules-based international order for the digital space should keep several guiding principles in mind. One is the importance of developing joint standards, as well as the need for consistent messaging towards the emerging cohort of engaged ‘swing states’. Another is the need for persistence in ensuring that the political, civic and economic benefits associated with a more open and well-regulated digital sphere are made clear to governments and citizens everywhere.

Countries advocating an open, free and secure model should take the lead in embracing and promoting a common affirmative model – one that draws on human rights principles (such as the rights to freedom of opinion, freedom of expression and privacy) and expands their applications to the digital space.  

Specific rules on cyberspace and technology use need to include pragmatic policy ideas and models of implementation. As this regulatory corpus develops, rules should be adapted to reflect informed consideration of economic and social priorities and attitudes, and to keep pace with what is possible technologically.[9]

Notes

[1] Including but not limited to AI and an associated group of digital technologies, such as the Internet of Things, big data, blockchain, quantum computing, advanced robotics, self-driving cars and other autonomous systems, additive manufacturing (i.e. 3D printing), social networks, the new generation of biotechnology, and genetic engineering.

[2] O’Hara, K. and Hall, W. (2018), Four Internets: The Geopolitics of Digital Governance, Centre for International Governance Innovation, CIGI Paper No. 206, https://www.cigionline.org/publications/four-internets-geopolitics-digital-governance.

[3] GAFAM = Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft; BATX = Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi.

[4] Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (undated), ‘Cyber Norms Index’, https://carnegieendowment.org/publications/interactive/cybernorms (accessed 30 May 2019).

[5] Future of Life Institute (undated), ‘AI Policy – China’, https://futureoflife.org/ai-policy-china?cn-reloaded=1.

[6] Dutton, T. (2018), ‘Building an AI World: Report on National and Regional AI Strategies’, 6 December 2018, CIFAR, https://www.cifar.ca/cifarnews/2018/12/06/building-an-ai-world-report-on-national-and-regional-ai-strategies.

[7] Including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and the Åland Islands.

[8] Shahbaz, A. (2018), Freedom on the Net 2018: The Rise of Digital Authoritarianism, Freedom House, October 2018, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2018/rise-digital-authoritarianism.

[9] Google White Paper (2018), Perspectives on Issues in AI Governance, https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/engaging-policy-stakeholders-issues-ai-governance/.

This essay was produced for the 2019 edition of Chatham House Expert Perspectives – our annual survey of risks and opportunities in global affairs – in which our researchers identify areas where the current sets of rules, institutions and mechanisms for peaceful international cooperation are falling short, and present ideas for reform and modernization.

International law applies to cyber operations – but views differ on exactly how. Does state-sponsored interference in another state's affairs using cyber means – for example,  disinformation campaigns in elections, disabling government websites, or disrupting transport systems – breach international law? If so, on what basis and how are the principles of sovereignty and non-intervention relevant? States are increasingly attributing cyber operations to other states and engaging in the debate on how international law applies, including circumstances that would justify countermeasures.

As states meet to debate these issues at the UN, the panel will explore how international law regulates cyberoperations by states, consider the prospects of progress at the UN, and assess the value of other initiatives.

This event coincides with the launch of a Chatham House research paper which analyses how the principles of sovereignty and intervention apply in the context of cyberoperations, and considers a way forward for agreeing a common understanding of cyber norms.

This event will bring together a broad group of actors, including policymakers, the private sector, legal experts and civil society, and will be followed by a drinks reception.

Summary

• The vast majority of state-to-state cyberattacks consist of persistent, low-level intrusions that take place below the threshold of use of force. International law, including the principle of non-intervention in another state’s internal affairs and the principle of sovereignty, applies to these cyber operations.
• It is not clear whether any unauthorized cyber intrusion would violate the target state’s sovereignty, or whether there is a threshold in operation. While some would like to set limits by reference to effects of the cyber activity, at this time such limits are not reflected in customary international law. The assessment of whether sovereignty has been violated therefore has to be made on a case by case basis, if no other more specific rules of international law apply.
• In due course, further state practice and opinio iuris may give rise to an emerging cyber-specific understanding of sovereignty, just as specific rules deriving from the sovereignty principle have crystallized in other areas of international law.
• Before a principle of due diligence can be invoked in the cyber context, further work is needed by states to agree upon rules as to what might be expected of a state in this context.
• The principle of non-intervention applies to a state’s cyber operations as it does to other state activities. It consists of coercive behaviour by one state that deprives the target state of its free will in relation to the exercise of its sovereign functions in order to compel an outcome in, or conduct with respect to, a matter reserved to the target state.
• In practice, activities that contravene the non-intervention principle and activities that violates sovereignty will often overlap.
• In order to reach agreement on how international law applies to states’ cyber operations below the level of use of force, states should put their views on record, where possible giving examples of when they consider that an obligation may be breached, as states such as the UK, Australia, France and the Netherlands have done.
• Further discussion between states should focus on how the rules apply to practical examples of state-sponsored cyber operations. There is likely to be more commonality about specific applications of the law than there is about abstract principles.
• The prospects of a general treaty in this area are still far off. In due course, there may be benefit in considering limited rules, for example on due diligence and a prohibition on attacking critical infrastructure, before tackling broad principles.

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.

Trade and investment between the UK and Latin America is woefully underdeveloped. Latin America’s agricultural powerhouses Brazil and Argentina only accounted for a total of 1.6% of the UK’s agricultural market across eight sectors in 2018, all of those areas in which Argentina and Brazil have substantial comparative advantages. 

Conversely, UK exports to the large Latin American economies remain far below their potential.  To cite a few examples, in 2018 in the electrical equipment sector, the UK only exported $95.7 million of those products to Brazil, making the ninth largest economy in the world only the 42nd export market for those goods from the UK; Mexico only imported $91.4 million of UK-made electrical goods, placing it directly behind Brazil as UK’s market for those goods.

As we look to the future, any improvement to the relationship will depend on two factors: 1) how the UK leaves the EU and 2) whether Latin American agricultural producers can improve their environmental practices and can meet the production standards established by the EU and likely maintained by a potential post-Brexit Britain.

In the first meeting of the working group,  Chatham House convened a range of policymakers, practitioners and academics to explore this topic in depth, identify the key issues driving this trend, and begin to consider how improvements might best be made. Subsequent meetings will focus on specific sectors in commerce and investment.

We would like to thank BTG Pactual, Cairn Energy plc, Diageo, Equinor, Fresnillo Management Services, HSBC Holdings plc and Wintershall Dea for their generous support of the Latin America Initiative.

Russia’s military strategy is increasingly blurring the boundaries between war and peace. As the nature of warfare changes, the Kremlin is adapting its strategies to pursue conflict, especially through non-military means - below the threshold of armed violence. 

Russian military tactics are often mistaken for strategy in the West. Oscar Jonson, author of The Russian Understanding of War, will talk through this debate and explore how the Russian leadership now understands military strategy in the context of modern warfare. Mathieu Boulègue will address the more operational aspects of contemporary warfare for Russia, notably grey zone operations. 

This is a transcript of a speech made by Ed Davey MP, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, on 11 July 2012 at Chatham House.

In his first keynote speech on the subject, the Secretary of State outlined his vision for ambitious action on climate change.

Event details.