This handbook provides a cutting edge study of international cultural heritage law, taking stock of the recent developments, core concepts, andcurrent challenges. --Résumé de l'éditeur.

In this era of globalization, International Law plays a significant role in facing rapid development of various legal issues. Cultural preservation has emerged as an important legal issue that should be considered by States. This book consists of academic papers presented and discussed during the 9th International Conference of the Centre of International Law Studies (9th CILS Conference) held in Malang, Indonesia, 2-3 October 2018. The title of the book represents the major theme of the conference: "Culture and International Law." It is argued that along with globalization, cultural preservation is slowly ignored by States. Various papers presented in the book cover five topics: cultural heritage; cultural rights; culture and economic activity; culture and armed conflict; and a general topic. The authors of the papers are outstanding academics from various countries, Lithuania, United States of America, Australia, Thailand and Indonesia. The conference was organized by Universitas Indonesia in collaboration with Brawijaya University. This book aims to give a useful contribution to the existing literature on International Law, specifically focussing on cultural issues from the perspective of cultural heritage and rights, economic as well as armed conflict.

The world has been shocked by the destruction of world cultural heritage sites over the past two decades, as seen in widely disseminated videos depicting events such as the demolition of the Buddhas of Bamiyan and the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. These acts are perhaps the clearest and most glaring examples of what is meant by the ‘Intentional Destruction of the Cultural Heritage of Humankind’ (IDCHH). The book explores in detail the remedies against IDCHH available under international law. These remedies are defined as all the lawful responses provided for both by customary law and by the special responsibility regimes created under the many substantive areas of international law. The examination includes UNESCO instruments and UN measures for the maintenance of international peace, mechanisms for the protection of human rights and those for the protection of investments, and international criminal justice outcomes through the decisions of the Permanent Criminal Court. Thus, the book explores avenues for response such as appeals to international courts, peacekeeping operations and referrals to the criminal legislation of States, in addition to reparations. The concept of the Cultural Heritage of Humankind implies that IDCHH harms all States and all peoples and human groupings in the world, not only the State or people on whose territory the cultural property is located. The book identifies the international law avenues for subjects not directly injured by IDCHH to obtain its cessation and reparation. This book is essential reading for students, academics and practitioners exploring international law and the destruction of cultural heritage.

This book analyses the current legal framework seeking to protect cultural heritage during armed conflict and discusses proposed and emerging paradigms for its better protection. Cultural heritage has always been a victim of conflict, with monuments and artefacts frequently destroyed as collateral damage in wars throughout history. In addition, works of art have been viewed as booty by victors and stolen in the aftermath of conflict. However, deliberate destruction of cultural sites and items has also occurred, and the Intentional destruction of cultural heritage has been a hallmark of recent conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, where we have witnessed unprecedented, systematic attacks on culture as a weapon of war. In Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Mali, extremist groups such as ISIS and Ansar Dine have committed numerous acts of iconoclasm, deliberately destroying heritage sites, and looting valuable artefacts symbolic of minority cultures. This study explores how the international law framework can be fully utilised in order to tackle the destruction of cultural heritage, and analyses various paradigms which have recently been suggested for its better protection, including the Responsibility to Protect paradigm and the peace and security paradigm. This volume will be an essential resource for scholars and practitioners in the areas of public international law, especially international humanitarian law and cultural heritage law.

Berenika Drazewska’s book offers a comprehensive scholarly analysis of the current meaning of military necessity in the international legal framework for the protection of cultural heritage during armed conflicts.

Cultural genocide is the systematic destruction of traditions, values, language, and other elements that make one group of people distinct from another.Cultural genocide remains a recurrent topic, appearing not only in the form of wide-ranging claims about the commission of cultural genocide in diverse contexts but also in the legal sphere, as exemplified by the discussions before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and also the drafting of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These discussions have, however, displayed the lack of a uniform understanding of the concept of cultural genocide and thus of the role that international law is expected to fulfil in this regard. The Concept of Cultural Genocide: An International Law Perspective details how international law has approached the core idea underlying the concept of cultural genocide and how this framework can be strengthened and fostered. It traces developments from the early conceptualisation of cultural genocide to the contemporary question of its reparation. Through this journey, the book discusses the evolution of various branches of international law in relation to both cultural protection and cultural destruction in light of a number of legal cases in which either the concept of cultural genocide or the idea of cultural destruction has been discussed. Such cases include the destruction of cultural and religious heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the forced removals of Aboriginal children in Australia and Canada, and the case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in relation to Indigenous and tribal groups' cultural destruction.

The massive intentional destruction of cultural heritage during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War targeting a historically diverse identity provoked global condemnation and became a seminal marker in the discourse on cultural heritage. It prompted an urgent reassessment of how cultural property could be protected in times of conflict and led to a more definitive recognition in international humanitarian law that destruction of a people's cultural heritage is an aspect of genocide. Yet surprisingly little has been published on the subject. This wide-ranging book provides the first comprehensive overview and critical analysis of the destruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina's cultural heritage and its far-reaching impact. Scrutinizing the responses of the international community during the war (including bodies like UNESCO and the Council of Europe), the volume also analyses how, after the conflict ended, external agendas impinged on heritage reconstruction to the detriment of the broader peace process and refugee return. It assesses implementation of Annex 8 of the Dayton Peace Agreement, a unique attempt to address the devastation to Bosnia's cultural heritage, and examines the treatment of war crimes involving cultural property at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). With numerous case studies and plentiful illustrations, this important volume considers questions which have moved to the foreground with the inclusion of cultural heritage preservation in discussions of the right to culture in human rights discourse and as a vital element of post-conflict and development aid.