About

In 2016, in response to recent attacks on cultural heritage sites in Syria, Iraq, and Timbuktu, the J. Paul Getty Trust convened a meeting at the British Academy in London to discuss the need for an international framework to protect cultural heritage in zones of armed conflict. To further explore these questions, the Trust subsequently launched the J. Paul Getty Trust Occasional Papers in Cultural Heritage Policy.

In this first issue, Thomas G. Weiss and Nina Connelly examine the relationship between cultural cleansing and mass atrocities. After summarizing the key debates surrounding the destruction of cultural heritage in armed conflict zones, Weiss and Connelly present options for creating an international framework dedicated to its protection. They demonstrate how the UN’s Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, a preexisting framework that allows for international intervention to stop war crimes or genocide, might be adapted to protect cultural heritage sites. This paper introduces the varied challenges and issues connected to the protection of cultural heritage and proposes a way forward in the development of a unified international response.

Citation Information

Chicago

Weiss, Thomas G., and Nina Connelly. “Cultural Cleansing and Mass Atrocities: Protecting Cultural Heritage in Armed Conflict Zones.” J. Paul Getty Trust Occasional Papers in Cultural Heritage Policy, no. 1 (2017). https://www.getty.edu/publications/occasional-papers-1/.

MLA

Weiss, Thomas G., and Nina Connelly. “Cultural Cleansing and Mass Atrocities: Protecting Cultural Heritage in Armed Conflict Zones.” J. Paul Getty Trust Occasional Papers in Cultural Heritage Policy, no. 1, 2017, www.getty.edu/publications/occasional-papers-1/. Accessed Aug. 29, 2019.

Permanent URL

https://getty.edu/publications/occasional-papers-1/

Revision History

Any revisions or corrections made to this publication after the first edition date will be listed here and in the project repository at github.com/thegetty/occasional-papers-1/, where a more detailed version history is available. The revisions branch of the project repository, when present, will also show any changes currently under consideration but not yet published here.

December 5, 2017

  • First PDF edition

September 8, 2020

  • Migration to digital platform
  • Release of new e-book edition

Other Formats

This publication was created using Quire™, a multiformat publishing tool from Getty.

This publication has been funded by the President’s International Council, J. Paul Getty Trust.

© 2017, 2020 J. Paul Getty Trust

CC-BY-NCCC-BY-NC

This text of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. The cover image is reproduced with the permission of the rights holder acknowledged in the caption and is expressly excluded from the CC BY-NC license covering the rest of this publication. The image may not be reproduced, copied, transmitted, or manipulated without consent from the owner, who reserves all rights.

Published by Getty Publications, Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, California 90049-1682
getty.edu/publications

ISBN 978-1-60606-671-3 (online)
ISBN 978-1-60606-672-0 (e-book)

Also in the series:

“Cultural Genocide and the Protection of Cultural Heritage”
Edward C. Luck

“Conflict and Cultural Heritage: A Moral Analysis of the Challenges of Heritage Protection”
Helen Frowe and Derek Matravers

“Cultural Heritage under Siege: Laying the Foundation for a Legal and Political Framework to Protect Cultural Heritage at Risk in Zones of Armed Conflict”
Edited by James Cuno and Thomas G. Weiss

Cover: The Umayyad, or Great Mosque, of Aleppo, Syria, March 10, 2017. Photo: Alfred Yaghobzadeh / Sipa USA (Sipa via AP Images) / © 2017 The Associated Press