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- Title
ATTACKS AGAINST CULTURAL HERITAGE AS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.
- Authors
Gottlieb, Yaron
- Abstract
The Draft Convention on Crimes against Humanity is a welcome initiative. To ensure that the Convention will reflect developments under international law since the 1990's, it is suggested to reconsider the Draft Convention's methodology of relying exclusively on the definition of crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It is therefore proposed to view the Rome Statute's list of crimes as a benchmark for negotiations rather than as the ultimate text defining what constitutes crimes against humanity. In that context, the article advocates for introducing in the Draft Convention a new crime against humanity addressing widespread or systematic attacks against cultural heritage. Such attacks have unfortunately become a rampant phenomenon in both times of war and peace. In recent decades, a significant evolution in this field has taken place, including in the discourse equating heritage with humanity and heritage destruction with attacks against humankind; the jurisprudence of international tribunals; and the role exercised by bodies such as the Security Council in support of heritage protection. Notwithstanding those developments, the legal framework governing atrocity crimes has not evolved in a commensurate manner. Consequently, certain legal gaps persist and the expressive value of counter-messaging large-scale campaigns of destruction has not been fully explored. The article begins with a brief overview of the contemporary international criminal law regime governing attacks against cultural heritage. It continues by identifying the main legal gaps as well as additional considerations that support the introduction of a distinct crime against humanity in the Draft Convention's list of crime. The article then defines the proposed new crime and analyzes the crime's elements including a definition of cultural heritage for the purpose of the Draft Convention.
- Subjects
CULTURAL property; INTERNATIONAL law; HUMANITY; INTERNATIONAL criminal courts; ATROCITIES
- Publication
Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, 2020, Vol 52, Issue 1/2, p287
- ISSN
0008-7254
- Publication type
Article