According to International Law, Palmyra Should Have Been Saved

RULES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW PROTECTING CULTURAL SITES AND OBJECTS IN WAR EXIST, BUT THERE IS A LACK OF THE EXPERTISE AND ECONOMIC RESOURCES REQUIRED TO IMPLEMENT AND ENFORCE THEM

by Roger O'Keefe, Dept. of Legal Studies

People can be sceptical upon learning that there are rules of international law protecting cultural sites and objects in war. If these rules did any good, why were Palmyra, Nimrud and Timbuktu devastated? What about the widespread pillage of antiquities in contemporary war zones?

As with restoring works of art, evaluating the international law on the protection of cultural property in armed conflict requires an appreciation of the medium in which we are working and the tools at our disposal.

Law can only do so much to restrain conduct. No rules will ever stop those whose malice, greed, ideology or arrogance breeds contempt for the very idea of law. There are penal codes the world over, but twisted people still do twisted things. The same goes for the laws of war on the protection of cultural property.

Law also depends on capacity in order to be effective. The best rules and will in the world are useless without the human and material resources to back them up. Manpower, training, and administrative and technical systems all cost money, call for expertise, and cannot be mobilized overnight. Some state and non-state parties to armed conflicts simply lack the wherewithal to acquit their legal obligations, at least insofar as they oblige them to prevent the looting of large numbers of archaeological sites by the local populace or organized criminals.

The good news, however, is that the great majority of states and even non-state armed groups place a premium on the international law for the protection of cultural property in armed conflict. Moreover, this law promotes and creates mechanisms for international cooperation and assistance, including in capacity-building, to facilitate its implementation.

Nor are the rules just about restraining the bad guys. They also oblige the good guys to take all feasible precautions in armed conflict to keep cultural property out of harm’s way or to cushion the blow. Transporting to safety the contents of museums at risk and insulating artistic and architectural treasures with sandbags and scaffolding, as envisaged by international law, have saved countless cultural sites and objects in war, from Leonardo’s Cenacolo to ancient mosaics and manuscripts in Syria, Iraq and Mali.

Additionally, where international law cannot prevent, it can at least punish and compel reparation. Deliberate destruction and theft of cultural property in armed conflict are war crimes triable in both international and national courts, as leading German Nazis, political and military figures from across the former Yugoslavia, and Islamic extremists in the Sahel have all found to their cost. The same acts also constitute international legal wrongs for which responsible states, from Italy to Ethiopia, have been obliged by treaties of peace or international tribunals to compensate or, where possible, to accord restitution by handing back a plundered cultural object.

In the end, the rules of international law for the protection of cultural property in armed conflict are not perfect, just as no human institution is perfect. They do no more than they can. But what they can and do is more than people may think