Specific (or deliberate) targeting and damage
Cultural property can also be damaged by deliberate targeting, which falls into two types. Put (very) simply, a site may be deliberately targeted if it has become a military objective – for example, in 2016, ARA news reported “The terror group [ISIS] has a plan to avoid the US-led coalitions airstrikes" and “the best way is to hide weapons and media centers inside the mosques”. In using the sites in this way, the site loses its protection, and may become a legitimate military target. However, just because it is a legitimate target, this does not mean it will be targeted.
“Military objectives” are limited to those objects which: by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action, and whose partial or total destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage. |
The second type is where there is no military gain to the destruction. When Raphael Lemkin was drafting what would become the Genocide Convention (1948), he wrote about barbarism - attacks on people - and vandalism - attacks on their culture and cultural property. Vandalism was ultimately dropped from the final text of the Convention, but the issue remains well documented today.
We know of multiple instances of the deliberate targeting of cultural property for no clear military gain. In World War II, for example, the Allies bombed the historic German towns of Lübeck and Rostock. Furious, Hitler ordered retaliatory raids on historic British centres, like Bath. In 2003 in Iraq, statues and mosaics of Saddam Hussein were destroyed and defaced. Heritage destruction is also linked to attacks on the populations for which it is important. The shelling of the World Heritage site of Dubrovnik, and burning of the Sarajevo library, are high profile cases of the almost endemic specific targeting of the enemy’s cultural property by all sides in the conflict in the Balkans. Some of these acts of destruction were prosecuted as War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. This was seen again in the symbolic destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, and the targeting of cultural sites in Iraq, Mali, and Syria, notably the destruction of parts of the World Heritage site of Palmyra, which has been linked to purely propagandistic motives. It's a topic that has become of increasing interest to humanitarian organisations, such as the ICRC.
We know of multiple instances of the deliberate targeting of cultural property for no clear military gain. In World War II, for example, the Allies bombed the historic German towns of Lübeck and Rostock. Furious, Hitler ordered retaliatory raids on historic British centres, like Bath. In 2003 in Iraq, statues and mosaics of Saddam Hussein were destroyed and defaced. Heritage destruction is also linked to attacks on the populations for which it is important. The shelling of the World Heritage site of Dubrovnik, and burning of the Sarajevo library, are high profile cases of the almost endemic specific targeting of the enemy’s cultural property by all sides in the conflict in the Balkans. Some of these acts of destruction were prosecuted as War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. This was seen again in the symbolic destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, and the targeting of cultural sites in Iraq, Mali, and Syria, notably the destruction of parts of the World Heritage site of Palmyra, which has been linked to purely propagandistic motives. It's a topic that has become of increasing interest to humanitarian organisations, such as the ICRC.
Coventry Cathedral was bombed in World War II as part of bombing raids from 4-15 November 1940 - the area was an important engineering and armament production centre and the attack was considered necessary, but bombing in the 1940s lacked precision, and large areas were usually damaged. Today, the site has been preserved as a memorial to war, and religious buildings and cultural sites are protected under the 1977 Additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and customary international law and may never be targeted without clear military necessity.
© Andrew Walker (walker44), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
© Andrew Walker (walker44), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Mitigation: International law condones attacks against cultural property if certain criteria are met: the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict lays down a basic framework for attacks of this type, which may unfortunately be necessary. Such actions must be assessed against the Laws of Armed Conflict to ensure that the attack is proportionate, necessary, responsible and obeys the laws of distinction. In all cases the attack should be aimed at the people or the equipment at the site as far as possible, and never just at the site. In the famous case of Monte Cassino Abbey in World War II, the Allies spent considerable time trying to establish if the Germans had occupied the historic Abbey on top of the hill at the entrance to the valley the Allies needed to pass through to reach Rome. They did not want to bomb the Abbey, but were unable to pass through the German lines of fire. Eventually, desperate, they did choose to bomb the Abbey: it turned out the Germans, however, had been camped below it, and they then occupied the ruins, and became an even greater obstacle to the Allied advance.
In addition to raising awareness of the responsibilities of armed groups under international and customary law, peacetime preparations should be made for the protection of cultural property, as by the time armed conflict or a disaster occurs, it is often too late. Protection of cultural property during conflict is context-specific and, in some instances, there is little that can be done during conflict to mitigate against the specific targeting of sites and the emphasis, where possible, has to be on the proactive protection prior to the conflict. At the same time, the international community has begun to take legal action against those responsible for such destruction, ensuring that such crimes do not go unpunished.
In addition to raising awareness of the responsibilities of armed groups under international and customary law, peacetime preparations should be made for the protection of cultural property, as by the time armed conflict or a disaster occurs, it is often too late. Protection of cultural property during conflict is context-specific and, in some instances, there is little that can be done during conflict to mitigate against the specific targeting of sites and the emphasis, where possible, has to be on the proactive protection prior to the conflict. At the same time, the international community has begun to take legal action against those responsible for such destruction, ensuring that such crimes do not go unpunished.
- Key Blue Shield UK staff have taken training introducing them to international humanitarian law and the Laws of Armed Conflict so they are able to support the armed forces in carrying out training in IHL.
- Some members are also members of the British Army Cultural Property Protection Unit, who we work closely with.
- Our academic members are also carrying out research into the causes of heritage destruction in conflict - understanding is the first step to prevention.
Read more about cultural heritage prosecutions in the Law Library of the BSI website.
Read more about Lemkin and cultural vandalism in this Getty Occasional Paper.
Read more about the destruction in the Balkans on the Targeting History and Memory website.