UNESCO’s Response: Three Lines of Action

When I look back at UNESCO’s response to conflict and heritage destruction, I realize that what occurred to me most forcefully at the time was the need to think and act both within the existing legal and institutional framework and, at the same time, outside the “culture box.” There was an urgent need for action, for new ideas, for collaboration, for mobilizing governments and the expert community, and for working ever more closely with the UN’s partners. What emerged were three lines of action: leveraging all the legal and institutional frameworks; working closely with the humanitarian and security communities in member states and within the United Nations broadly; and, last but not least, awareness raising. This approach received the strong support of the UN and many member states. The three are discussed in turn below.

The first and most obvious line of action was linked to the international legal framework. As the guardian of a comprehensive set of international conventions, covering tangible and intangible cultural heritage and the diversity of cultural expressions, UNESCO has the legitimacy and a particular responsibility for the protection of heritage and cultural diversity as a global public good. Over its seventy-five years of existence, the organization has created an entirely new space for international cooperation, adopting legal instruments and documents and coordinating practical action by governments, experts, and civil society groups. It was important to see how and to what extent these legal instruments could be applied within the framework of “modern” conflicts, where nonstate actors were often the main perpetrators of destruction and looting.

Four conventions have particular relevance to the protection of heritage in conflict:

  • 1954: Protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict (and two 1999 protocols);
  • 1970: Fighting against illicit trafficking of cultural property;
  • 1972: Protection of world cultural and natural property; and
  • 2003: Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage.

Still very much needed was wider ratification of these conventions and thus a strengthening of international cooperation. This was particularly the case for the 1954 convention and its later protocols and the 1970 convention, the latter of which still had important international players missing.

The 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, adopted in the wake of massive destruction of cultural heritage during World War II, was the first multilateral treaty with a worldwide vocation focusing exclusively on the protection of cultural heritage in the event of armed conflict: immovable and movable cultural heritage; monuments of architecture, art, or history; archeological sites; works of art, manuscripts, books, and other objects of artistic, historical, or archeological interest; and scientific collections of all kinds, regardless of their origin or ownership.

The convention and its two protocols have become an important part of international humanitarian law with their focus on the protection of cultural institutions and heritage in time of war. UNESCO and its many partners, particularly the Blue Shield International and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), had long been advocating for the convention’s wider ratification. We strengthened our message on the urgency of the moment, which, at the end of the day, brought results. With France becoming party to the second protocol in 2016, and the ratification of the convention and protocols by the United Kingdom the following year, all five permanent members of the Security Council (the so-called “P5” of the United States, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom) are now states parties to the convention—critical for its implementation and a strong commitment to the protection of heritage.

It was on the basis of the 1954 convention that UNESCO signed a memorandum of understanding with the ICRC in March 2016—the first agreement of its kind. This consolidated the ongoing advocacy of both organizations for the wider ratification of the convention and opened the way for greater exchange of information, particularly regarding areas of difficult access, aimed at protecting cultural property at risk. The ICRC thus could potentially play an operational role in the rescue and evacuation of cultural property in some conflict situations. Being the impartial, neutral, and independent keeper of international humanitarian law, the ICRC has become a key UNESCO partner in emergency situations. This provides additional strong testimony to the growing global awareness that the protection of cultural heritage is not just a cultural emergency, but a humanitarian imperative.

In the fight against cultural heritage trafficking, the main international legal instruments are the 1970 Convention Concerning the Measures to Be Taken to Prohibit and Prevent the Illegal Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Heritage. By the adoption of the latter, UNIDROIT, the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law, stated clearly that if a cultural object is stolen, it has to be returned, and that there is a need for due diligence in acquiring objects of art. It was an important addition to the fight against illicit trafficking of stolen or looted antiquities, as it obliges the buyer to check the legitimacy of their purchases.

Initially, the 1970 convention did not make any provisions for a periodic monitoring body. In the first forty years of the convention’s existence, only one meeting of the General Conference of states parties was ever held, in 2003. While the convention is an important platform for international cooperation, it lacked mechanisms of monitoring and follow-up in terms of national legislation, training, exchange of best practices, and peer review.

However, the General Conference’s executive board approved my proposal for a second meeting, held in June 2012. Here, in order to monitor implementation, the states parties agreed to convene a meeting every two years, as well as to establish a subsidiary committee, strengthening the convention’s relevance. Among the main purposes of the committee were to review national reports of states parties, to identify difficult situations resulting from the implementation of the 1970 convention, including protection and return of cultural property, and to submit recommendations and guidelines to the states parties.

This created a concrete platform for stronger international cooperation in the fight against illicit trafficking of cultural objects from Syria and Iraq. While it is difficult to assess the scale of plundering and looting of antiquities, there were dozens of intercepts, widely reported in the media. It is not by chance that the 1970 trafficking convention is mentioned in several Security Council resolutions on heritage and conflict.

No doubt the emblematic Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage of 1972 played the most critical role in awakening public opinion to the tragedy of the destruction. The convention remains the most widely ratified international legal instrument in modern history: with 193 states parties, it sends an undisputedly universal and humanistic message of respect and recognition of the contribution of all cultures to human civilization.

The World Heritage Committee has taken numerous important decisions to raise international awareness of the need to mobilize support for the protection of cultural heritage in conflict. These include inscribing the sites that have been attacked and damaged onto the List of World Heritage in Danger, such as Timbuktu and the Tomb of Askia in Mali and the six Syrian World Heritage Sites, in addition to authorizing missions and creating funds for emergency conservation measures. For example, already in March 2014 UNESCO established an “Observatory of Syrian Cultural Heritage” at its Beirut office with the financial support of the European Union (EU).

The fourth primary instrument with a relevance to culture and conflict is the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. It covers traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe, and the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts.

Although it has been increasingly recognized that intangible cultural heritage, which is predominantly community based, has a direct relevance and is often affected during conflict, it has not found the place it deserves on the agenda of decision-makers and experts. One reason might be that such destruction is often “invisible,” as the criteria for recognizing it as being part of the intangible heritage of humanity is not its “outstanding universal value,” but its value to a community, albeit small and distant. Nevertheless, significantly enough, in the case of Mali, MINUSMA recognized that “intangible heritage was also affected by events and numerous cultural events and practices were interrupted from the beginning of the conflict.” It also recognized that the “oral expressions and traditions existing in Mali allow populations to express and transmit their values and knowledge and are, in particular, tools for the resolution of conflicts and to create inter- and intra-community cohesion.”

A telling example among the eight Malian items on the Lists of Intangible Heritage is the “Charter of Manden,” proclaimed in the early thirteenth century by the founder of the Mandingo Empire, situated between present-day Guinea and Mali from the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries. The charter is one of the oldest constitutions in the world, albeit mainly in oral form, and contains a preamble of seven chapters advocating social peace in diversity, the inviolability of the human being, education, food security, freedom of expression, and trade. While the empire has disappeared, the words of the charter and the rituals associated with it are still transmitted orally from father to son in a codified form.

Working Closely with International Actors

Our second line of action was working closely with member states, as well as with the humanitarian and security communities at the UN broadly. Given the intergovernmental character of UNESCO, an important milestone was the adoption of a comprehensive “Strategy for the Reinforcement of UNESCO’s Action for the Protection of Culture and the Promotion of Cultural Pluralism in the Event of Armed Conflict” in November 2015 by the organization’s thirty-eighth General Conference.

The strategy clearly stated that it “[s]upports the Director-General’s efforts aimed at embedding the protection of cultural heritage and cultural diversity in humanitarian action, global security strategies and peacebuilding processes, by means of all pertinent United Nations mechanisms and in collaboration with the relevant United Nations departments.” Overall, the strategy made it very clear that “attacks on culture are characterized by the deliberate targeting of individuals on the basis of their cultural, ethnic or religious affiliation. Combined with the intentional and systematic destruction of cultural heritage, the denial of cultural identity, including books and manuscripts, traditional practices, as well as places of worship, of memory and learning, such attacks have been defined as ‘cultural cleansing.’” It went on to say that “cultural cleansing, intended in this way, aims to eradicate cultural diversity from a geographical area and replace it with a single, homogeneous cultural and religious perspective.”

The implementation of this strategy became an indispensable pillar of UNESCO’s activities: to build broad coalitions by connecting the dots between humanitarian, security, and cultural imperatives. In other words, to convince the political and security constituencies within and outside the UN that there is a strong causal link between the rise of violent extremism, and humanitarian crises and the destruction of heritage. Consequently, the strategy also declared: “This form of multi-faceted denial of culture and cultural diversity, linked with aggressive propaganda…highlights how the destruction of cultural heritage is far more than a cultural tragedy and has become a security issue and that culture cannot be delinked from humanitarian operations and must be a key component of any strategy for peace.”

In a further move to engage international actors, on November 26–27, 2015, UNESCO convened an expert meeting on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as applied to cultural heritage destruction. Its primary purpose was to explore the possible application of R2P to the protection of cultural heritage. Participants included twenty-two distinguished specialists and practitioners representing various international governmental and nongovernmental organizations in this field, including Adama Dieng, then UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide.

While most experts agreed on the challenges and the difficulties of applying the concept of R2P in the context of cultural heritage, and that it might be unrealistic to expect that it represents a viable path for international cooperation vis-à-vis the destruction of heritage in Syria and Iraq, the meeting did adopt recommendations that “highlighted the preventive aspect” of R2P. The meeting also helpfully noted that “acts of intentional destruction and misappropriation of cultural heritage can constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, can indicate genocidal intent, and are frequently associated with ethnic cleansing and its accompanying ‘cultural cleansing.’”

There were also two important recommendations to member states and the UNESCO Secretariat. First, that due consideration be given to the idea of “safe havens” for cultural property situated in states outside the conflict zone, as envisaged by the 1954 convention. And second, that due consideration be given to the idea of “cultural protected zones,” in accordance with the 1954 convention; with the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts; and with the UN Charter.

The illegal trafficking of arms and drugs, and their link with the financing of the activities of extremists in the Middle East and Africa, has also emerged as an issue of serious concern within the UN. It came high on the Security Council’s agenda well before the adoption of the above-mentioned strategy by the General Conference in 2015. This concern grew when satellite images, provided with the cooperation and special agreement of the United Nations’ UNITAR-UNOSAT program in 2014 and 2015, provided undisputed proof of the looting of sites and smuggling of antiquities.

Consequently, on February 12, 2015, the Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2199, submitted by Russia, which broke new ground by banning cultural trade from Iraq and Syria, under Chapter VII of the UN Charter—permitting military enforcement—as a means of financing terrorism. This in itself was a major step, linking cultural issues and security concerns. It also acknowledged that cultural heritage stands on the frontline of conflict and so should be placed at the frontline of security and political responses to the crisis.

The Security Council clearly declared that a link exists between trafficking in cultural objects and the financing of terrorist groups, who thus “are generating income from engaging directly or indirectly in the looting and smuggling of cultural heritage items from archaeological sites, museums, libraries, archives, and other sites in Iraq and Syria, which is being used to support their recruitment efforts and strengthen their operational capability to organize and carry out terrorist attacks.”

Our work with the Security Council P5 and the negotiation of concrete texts were critical for the inclusion of the respective paragraphs in Resolution 2199, and for support for the future work of UNESCO. In addition, the resolution placed a special responsibility on UNESCO and other important international players, such as the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the World Customs Organization, and the International Council of Museums (ICOM) to curb the trafficking of antiquities from these countries. On this basis UNESCO created a new platform for close cooperation, with regular exchanges with these partners at both an expert level and that of the organization heads.

The list of joint activities and initiatives, based on the specific mandates of the different partners and entities, is long. In 2015 UNODC and UNESCO launched a training program for judges and prosecutors—to connect the fight against illicit trafficking of antiquities from Syria and Iraq with that against money laundering and corruption. Coordination among law enforcement agencies, experts, museums, and auction houses was boosted, as was close collaboration with the World Customs Organization to identify cultural heritage fraud and prevent trafficking. Entrusted by the Security Council and relying on the 1970 convention, UNESCO has also supported countries in strengthening legislation, building capacity, and deepening information sharing. As a result, by 2017 more than sixty governments had amended or adopted new legislation in order to respond to the need for stronger measures and coordination efforts, and had adapted institutions and launched national and regional projects against the illicit trafficking of antiquities from Syria and Iraq.

Since most of the existing international legal instruments do not provide for penal actions, a recent prominent question has been how to fight impunity for destruction of cultural heritage. Here the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been critical, as it declares the intentional destruction of buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science, or charitable purposes without military justification to be a war crime. It was almost immediately after the destruction of the mausoleums of Timbuktu that I called the ICC chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, to discuss the possibility of the court opening an investigation as to whether a crime had been committed under its statute. We also encouraged the government of Mali to submit such a request, which they did in July 2012, opening the way for the court’s investigation.

After scrupulous joint work by the UNESCO and ICC teams, on July 1, 2012, Bensouda declared that the destruction of mausoleums in Mali constituted a war crime under the Rome Statute, and launched a preliminary examination into the violence that had been engulfing the country since January 2012. UNESCO and the ICC thus established a close and unique partnership with the purpose of bringing to justice those who have committed crimes by destroying cultural heritage—an extremely challenging task, with no precedents.

As a result, the first suspect for this destruction, Ahmed al-Faqi al-Mahdi, was arrested and transferred by the authorities of Mali and Niger to The Hague, the Netherlands, where the ICC is based, on September 26, 2015. In August the following year, al-Mahdi pled guilty before the court to the intentional damage of nine mausoleums and a mosque in Timbuktu in June and July 2012.

On September 27, 2016, al-Mahdi was sentenced by the ICC to nine years’ imprisonment. This was the first time the court had taken action in relation to the war crime of destruction of cultural heritage. The conviction of al-Mahdi thus made history in the fight against impunity—recognizing the restoration of justice and the rule of law as an essential step of any recovery process. It set a historic precedent for similar cases in the future—to treat such deliberate destruction as a war crime. Building on this cooperation, in November 2017, Bensouda and I signed a letter of intent formalizing and further enhancing the collaboration between UNESCO and the ICC.

During this period, UNESCO also worked with many other partners to strengthen protection of heritage and to counter violent extremism. Perhaps most prominently, on May 3, 2017, the Council of Europe adopted a Convention on Offenses Relating to Cultural Property, which aims to prevent and combat the illicit trafficking and destruction of cultural property, in the framework of the council’s action to fight terrorism and organized crime. The convention, elaborated with the active participation of UNESCO, is open for signature to any country and is the only treaty specifically dealing with the criminalization of the trafficking of cultural property. In a further example, on September 21, 2017, in cooperation with UNESCO and other international institutions and agencies, the EU adopted a new policy to protect cultural heritage from terrorism and mass atrocities.

Awareness Raising

The third line of action, namely raising global awareness of the scale of the destruction and looting, was equally important. UNESCO aimed at mobilizing civil society, the expert community, academia, and young people around a common understanding of why protection of heritage matters, and countering the narrative and hate speech of extremists. To this end, in May 2015, six months after my first visit, I went back to Iraq to launch UNESCO’s new campaign, #Unite4Heritage, at the University of Bagdad with young Iraqi students. #Unite4Heritage became a major social network platform that aimed to build a global movement of predominantly young people that shared stories, knowledge, and experience about heritage and culture, challenging the extremists’ narrative about identity and values.

We launched #Unite4Heritage at the thirty-ninth session of the World Heritage Committee in 2015 in Bonn, along with the German Presidency, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOC), Interpol, and Iraqi officials, among other partners. The committee adopted the Bonn Declaration on World Heritage, which condemned the barbaric assaults, violence, and crimes recently committed by ISIL against the cultural heritage of Iraq, including the World Heritage Site of Hatra, which recalls the mindless destructions in Bamiyan, Timbuktu, and elsewhere. Importantly, the declaration also recommended that heritage protection be included in the mandate of peacekeeping missions where appropriate and called on UNESCO to enhance its international leadership in coordinating the response to the protection of heritage in the event of armed conflict.

In order to give more visibility to #Unite4Heritage, I attended events with young people in many places, including at headquarters in Paris; the UN in New York; the Beirut National Museum, Lebanon; in Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates (UAE); in Cairo, during the reopening of the Islamic Museum, which had been damaged by a terrorist attack; and in Kabul’s historic Babur Garden in Afghanistan. At the latter location I launched a new UNESCO publication, “Keeping History Alive,” to remind young Afghanis about their rich and diverse identity.

At these events I discussed issues of diversity and the need to protect common heritage in schools and universities. Among other memories, a striking exchange in 2012 with a seventh-grade class in a school in Tunis stands out. I mentioned how proud they should be of their history and heritage with such rich Roman, Phoenician, and Islamic layers of culture. One girl raised her hand and said something that I will never forget: “Why should I be proud about heritage that does not belong to me, that does not belong to my culture, to my religion, that belongs to somebody else, why should I care to preserve it?”

In response I described how much cultures permeate each other. That maybe one of her ancestors had made the extraordinary Roman mosaics exhibited at the magnificent Bardo Museum—attacked in three years later in 2015 by extremists. I also explained to her that there is no pure culture, that there are always influences and that by understanding these cultural and historical interactions we also understand better who we are and where we come from, and ultimately how to live together more effectively. I came out of the meeting with the deep conviction of the need to engage more with young people, to help them to learn to respect their own heritage and that of others.

While in Cairo in May 2015, I gave a speech at one of the oldest and biggest Islamic academic institutions in the world, Al-Azhar University, and met with the prominent and respected Islamic scholar the Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, who supported the campaign and shared his concern over the rise of extremism. I was happy to meet him again at the beginning of 2018, after stepping down as director-general of UNESCO, at a conference in Abu Dhabi, the UAE, on intercultural and interreligious dialogue. The conference was followed by an important and highly symbolic event—the signature by al-Tayeb and Pope Francis of the “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” with a powerful message of mutual respect and humanity as one single family.

Other universities and civil society groups later joined #Unite4Heritage. Yale University, for example, organized a special day dedicated to the campaign in 2016, inviting me and then UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon to speak to the students. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (“the Met”), the US National Committee of ICOMOS (US/ICOMOS), and the Smithsonian Institution also became close partners of UNESCO, organizing conferences and advocacy events on the protection of the heritage in Syria and Iraq, often with the support of the US Department of State and with the participation of experts and high-level officials, including former US secretary of state John Kerry.

There were indeed many memorable events at the Met. I would particularly mention one organized in September 2016, “Today’s Struggle to Protect and Preserve the Cultural Heritage of Religious Minorities,” which included keynote speeches by former French president François Hollande and former US vice-president Joe Biden, now president of the United States. This was indeed an expression of the strong political commitment to protection of heritage and cultural diversity so much needed in these turbulent times, and an encouragement for us, at UNESCO, to continue our fight.

Among UN member states, France and Italy took the lead for the protection of heritage in conflict at important international fora. Italy held the first “International Conference of Ministers of Culture” in Milan on July 31, 2015, highlighting the key role of culture for peace and dialogue. And in March 2017, with the support of UNESCO, Italy also organized the first ever meeting of the Group of 7 (G7) on “Culture as a Tool for Dialogue among Peoples.” Then, in December of the following year, France and the UAE organized in Abu Dhabi, jointly with UNESCO, the “Conference for Safeguarding Cultural Heritage in Conflict Areas,” and decided to create an International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH). ALIPH has subsequently developed a network of partners and already supports one hundred projects in twenty-two countries.

Momentum has been built. In 2016 a memorandum of understanding was signed between Italy and UNESCO on the establishment of a #Unite4Heritage task force for the protection of cultural heritage at risk. It was a major and innovative step in our effort to gain recognition for the importance of cultural heritage in fostering identity and resilience in times of crisis, and in building social cohesion. The establishment of the task force, bringing together cultural heritage experts and the Italian Carabinieri police force, did enhance immensely the capacity to respond to future emergencies. The agreement contained in the memorandum was a concrete step toward implementing the aforementioned November 2015 “Reinforcement of UNESCO’s Action for the Protection of Culture and the Promotion of Cultural Pluralism in the Event of Armed Conflict,” notably through mechanisms for the rapid deployment of national expertise in emergency situations under UNESCO’s overall coordination.

The agreement was also a direct result of the implementation of Security Council Resolution 2199, which demanded concrete action against looting and illicit trafficking of archeological objects used as a means to finance criminal and terrorist activities. Today, as a consequence of these initiatives, representatives of the Carabinieri are in Mosul and Erbil training police, experts, and law enforcement administration.

During my eight years at UNESCO I saw the power of culture and heritage to mobilize, to rebuild, to reconcile, to renew, and to heal. I remember visiting Timbuktu in 2013 with François Hollande, witnessing the pain, suffering, and devastating effect of the destruction of the centuries-old heritage of mausoleums and manuscripts on the local communities. Standing in front of one of the destroyed mausoleums, I promised on behalf of UNESCO to rebuild them. Two years later, in July 2015, I went back to inaugurate fourteen mausoleums reconstructed under the auspices of UNESCO. Meeting with the local community was an emotional and memorable experience—I had the feeling of giving back to the local people their own identity.

Among the distinctions I received during my time as director-general of UNESCO, there is one that I deeply cherish: becoming an honorary citizen of Timbuktu. It reminds me always that the reconstruction of the city’s mausoleums was one of the most compelling examples that attacks against culture are attacks against the identity of communities and peoples, and against the very idea of sharing common histories, narratives, and values. They lead to devastation and lost identities. If not addressed, that loss can be irreparable, making reconciliation all the more difficult.

A decade earlier, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, former enemies had joined forces to rebuild the Mostar Bridge, destroyed by war. While attending the moving ceremony of the tenth anniversary of its inscription on the World Heritage List in 2015 and the beautiful late evening concert “The Bridge That Hugs the Coasts,” I reflected on the greater knowledge about and respect for each other that the world needs. Nowadays, I am proud to say there is much higher recognition of the link between culture, heritage, and humanitarian and security concerns.

In this regard, in the last few years the Security Council has adopted several landmark resolutions linking the protection of heritage with combatting mass atrocities. Resolution 2347, promoted by UNESCO and submitted by France and Italy on March 24, 2017, is a milestone in the effort to preserve heritage in conflict. It is the first council resolution adopted to ever recognize protection of cultural heritage as a matter of the maintenance of international peace and security, as well as to highlight the responsibility of the entire international community to protect cultural heritage during armed conflict. The resolution not only deplored the unlawful destruction of cultural heritage, religious sites, and artefacts, and the smuggling of cultural property by terrorist groups during armed conflict, but affirmed that such attacks might constitute a war crime and that perpetrators must be brought to justice. It thus constitutes the first global initiative by the Security Council to integrate and consolidate various elements of international law and policy vis-à-vis cultural heritage. This was followed in September 2017 by Resolution 2379, on ISIL accountability, which importantly underscored the link between the destruction of heritage and attacks on human lives. Peacekeepers from various countries have also begun to integrate the protection of heritage in training their armed forces, including in France and Italy.