Protecting art, artifacts, and cultural sites during war and armed conflicts

Секция – Право

Подсекция – 13

Романюк Е. И., Ничик Е. А.

Донецкий национальный университет экономики и торговли имени М. Туган-Барановского

Protecting art, artifacts, and cultural sites during war and armed conflicts

Plundering is a practice as ancient as warfare itself. With the development of the world's great civilizations, the proverbial "spoils of war" often included national and cultural treasures, including priceless art and antiquities. The looting of exotic, foreign treasure filled the national coffers and museums of the victorious, while depleting the vanquished of tangible remnants of their history. The evolution of warfare, both technical and philosophical, altered international perceptions on the seizure of cultural goods. However, today's international bans on the looting and trafficking of antiquities, as well as the expectation that cultural sites remain protected during wartime, took three centuries to come to fruition.

The elaboration of norms and Rules relating to cultural heritage had begun more than twenty years ago (1982) by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and WIPO. The Model Provisions for National Laws on the Protection of Expressions of Folklore Against Illicit Exploitation and Other Prejudicial Actions, had not been implemented by States and had been forgotten. A 1970 UNESCO Convention outlined international policy on the protection of artifacts and cultural sites during both war and peacetime. The convention recommended the repatriation of all antiquities, even those acquired from former colonies. The UNESCO Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (1972) contained larger amounts of good sense. In Article 1 of the Convention, the cultural heritage was considered to include architectural works, monumental sculptures or paintings, and elements or structures of an archaeological nature. Contrary to other instruments, the Convention was extended to the works of humanity or joint works of humanity and nature as well as to the areas including archaeological sites that had an exceptional universal value from a historical, aesthetic, etiological or anthropological point of view.

In the 1980s, several UN member nations signed a treaty limiting the destruction of cultural sites during military actions. Archaeologists, art scholars, and antiquities specialists successfully lobbied for a ban on the plunder and traffic of illegally obtained artifacts, or removing any antiquities from their context without express permission of national and local governments. INTERPOL now maintains a special force to investigate art and artifact crimes, including those perpetrated during wartime.

One of the most complicated cases in the international dispute over antiquities repatriation, the giving back of antiquities or works of art to their original owner, is that of the British-owned Elgin Marbles. The stone sculptures hail from the Greek Parthenon, but were purchased by Lord Elgin, a British collector, from Greek authorities, shortly before Greece erupted in a decades-long series of wars. The Parthenon was in dubious condition, and Elgin took the statues in an allegedly legal transaction. After the establishment of international laws governing the repatriation of both wartime and peacetime plundered goods, the Greek government appealed to the British History Museum for the return of the Elgin Marbles. The legal battle was intensified by Greece's desire to repossess the statues before the 2004 Olympics in Athens, but Britain has retained ownership of the prized antiquities.

One of the greatest protections to archaeological sites and cultural resources during wartime is the continued development of "smart weapons," ammunition that is carefully guided to specific strategic targets and detonated to minimally impact surrounding areas. Smart weapons permit militaries to strike targets in close proximity to cultural sites. Use of smart weapons by Britain and the United States in the Iraq War minimized damaged to Baghdad's numerous museums, mosques, and cultural sites. However, these weapons are only developed, possessed, and used by a handful of the most developed nations. Less developed regions, many of which are prone to endemic conflict, rely on more conventional weapons and techniques of total warfare.

Today, the national governments of the United States, Canada, and the European Union maintain the most comprehensive intelligence forces devoted to the protection of the archaeological and art resources. In 1998, several European nations sent a special task force into the Balkans, in conjunction with UN operations in Bosnia, to track the trafficking and theft of cultural resources. Coalition nations from the Iraq War in 2003 have devoted intelligence resources to an international effort to recover goods stolen from the Iraqi museum. Thus far, the international intelligence community and INTERPOL have arrested persons suspected of trafficking Iraqi treasures in Europe, the United States, and Asia.

Cultural heritage have stimulated the emergence of new norms and new actors in international law. The protection of cultural sites as the common heritage of humanity is now on the international agenda.

Sources:

1. Brodie, Neil, and Kathryn Walker Tubb, “Illicit Antiquities: The Theft of Culture and the Extinction of Archaeology”, London: Routledge, 2002.

2. UNESCO's actions and Conventions about cultural heritage available at http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=2405&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html.

3. Celestine Bohlen, “Greece Affirms Limits to Elgin Marbles Claim” available at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9904E5D7133AF930A25751C1A9649C8B63.

4. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/coalition/index.html