Cultural Heritage Protection During Armed Conflict

Legal protections for cultural property in times of armed conflict, in current terms, begin with the 1907 Hague Regulations (based on the 1863 US’ Lieber Code) and it, like the subsequent laws, was an attempt to protect culture and prevent a reoccurrence of the abuses experienced during conflict (Phuong 2004:986). The 1954 Hague

The identification of civilians’ bodies after genocides or political atrocities has received considerable attention in academia due to its social, judicial, and humanitarian implications. By contrast, the remains of soldiers have not been given enough attention. For one thing, soldiers are not always regarded as victims---they are trained to kill people and their deaths are deemed as battle casualties with less moral or legal consequence than civilians. For another, due to the destruction of bodies during battles, the necessity of quick troop maneuver, the loss of territory to enemies, or merely sanitary concerns that demand immediate disposal of bodies, abandoning soldiers’ remains in remote, unmarked graves is not beyond the imagination of

The issue of artifacts that have been taken from their original homes has started some global debate. Some may say that the artifacts need to be returned to their place of origin or who found them. They may also say that there are laws saying that the artifacts should be returned. Others may say that no matter who the objects belong to the artifacts should remain in museums around the world. Artifacts should not be returned to their nations of origins.

Many horrible and despicable acts have been committed during wartime. However, some of the worst acts committed are not readily known, such as the destruction and looting of historical areas and heritage sites. Published in Near Eastern Archaeology, an article named “Satellite Imagery-Based Analysis of Archaeological Looting in Syria” tackles this issue. In it Jesse Casana, the author, explains how his team is using satellite imagery (along with ground reports) to track the widespread looting across Syria. Casana is currently an Associate Professor at Dartmouth College, in the Department of Anthropology. He is also directing a survey project in the Diyala River Valley in Iraq. His previous engagement was as director of an excavation at Tell Qarqur in Syria. His specialization is in the development and implementation of geospatial technology and its use in archaeology. The combination of his boots on the ground experience in Syria, along with his specialization makes him a perfect candidate to lead the analysis on these looting sites. There are many reasons that I chose to review this article, the foremost being that it simply sounded fascinating. In addition to that, I wanted to gather more information as to where, why, and to what extent, looting was occurring. /!/

The Army and its interconnected units defend the Constitution and our citizens through skilled lethal use of weaponry and civil and combat operations. Organizational units prosper upon solidarity and esprit de corps; without that the Army may not be as effective, rendering constitutional protection an intricate task. Army leaders and soldiers alike develop their own types of experiences and knowledge in skill sets they embrace. Therefore, once combined, experience and knowledge create a professional force that has proven to outlast the strongest enemy. The white paper did stress the effects that a decade of war had on our professional force and leadership’s desire to recommit to a culture of service, responsibilities and behaviors of our profession to restore our professional state to 100%. A definition of human rights is contentious. To avoid controversy, the human rights in this paper are ―thinly conceived. This means the rights that matter most in military operations are a small set of basic human rights consisting of the rights against torture, rape, unjustified killing, arbitrary imprisonment, access to basic subsistence, and personal liberty. This conception of human rights is both consistent with the founding of the United States and defensible as objective moral goods which serve in part as a founding source of the Army

The U.S. military response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 signifies the most extensive use of force by any state since the Persian Gulf War more than two decades ago. Following these operations, many commentators have suggested that there has been a notable transformation in international law regarding state responsibility for terrorist acts. This essay aims to argue that such change has been significant and it has satisfactorily countenanced states’ response to terrorism by presenting evidence of new state practice plus opinio juris in this area. To do so, this essay will first discuss the controversial concept of terrorism and its relevance to the legal framework for the use of armed force in international law. From here, it will move to explicate the principles of and grounds for state responsibility as well as to debate that the act of providing a safe haven for terrorist non-state actors should be considered as a revolutionary factor to the concept of attribution. Lastly, this essay will examine the recent changes occurred in customary law on state responsibility in the light of the application and interpretation of Article 51 of the United Nations Charter after the events of September 11. All these aspects will demonstrate that not only has the law on state responsibility had noticeably developed and consequently provided states with adequate legality to react to the challenges posed by contemporary terrorism, but it has also begun to inaugurate binding

On March 19, 2003 Baghdad was under fire. Three weeks later, American tanks roll into the Iraq capital scenes of triumph replaced by chaos. The US Military wasn’t prepared for citywide civilian crisis and eventually everything went up for grabs—even the treasures of the Iraq museum. The Iraq Museum have object materials from about half a million years ago – carvings, statues, and pottery. All the archaeological data was housed

Ancient artifacts tell us much to all of what we know about our worlds past, these crucial remnants of past cultures allow us to physically see what was essential and valued by these ancient peoples. Artifacts tell us about suspicions, beliefs, everyday life and everything in between — without these crucial remnants of culture, we could not even begin to understand what was before us. Although these artifacts are useful for learning and understanding ancient civilizations, there is much debate about the morality of other countries buying and “owning” these historical pieces. Every civilization, past and present leaves behind a cultural trail everywhere it goes thus making exploration of different countries so very easy.

What is heritage and who has the power to determine the entities that own these cultural artifacts and the way that heritage is remembered in society? Lowenthal states that heritage illustrates society’s ancestries, artifacts, and cultural identity (Lowenthal, 22). Barber addresses how government can alter the interpretation of a culture. The articles in The Antiquities Act expressed the importance that legislative actions have in the field of cultural resource management through the protection of antiquities that represented the nation’s heritage. The theme of the readings depicts the influence that a country’s government has in preserving and interpreting its nation’s culture. When analyzing the theme, it is important to understand how claiming

Navy as a weapons-testing range from 1941 to 2003. It is informed by the following questions, as formulated by the artists: “How is land differentiated from other land by the way it is marked? Who decides what is worth preserving and what should be destroyed? What are the strategies for reclaiming marked land? How does one articulate an ethics and politics of land

The just war tradition may also consider the thoughts of various philosophers and lawyers throughout time and to examine both their philosophical visions of war’s ethical limits (or absence

The journal focuses on the restoration of Nazi looted artworks. During the time of WWII, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis rolled over Europe conquering nations, and people. In addition, Adolf and his army looted several very known artworks from national museums. The Nazi art confiscation program was seen as one of the greatest art displacement in human history. This was because artworks were taken from all these museums and

While readings from Thucydides, Aristotle, and Machiavelli provide unique insight in the way war is justified in early civil society, the introduction of globalization into international relations leads us to ask if early theories regarding war and justice are still relevant to new and complex power relationships. For the purpose of creating practical connections, I intend to look at several possible “jus in bello” applications of two contemporary military technologies: nuclear weapons and drones (otherwise known as Unmanned Armed Vehicles). There are many cases of emerging military technologies that raise valuable question in regards to just acts of war, but I chose these two in particular because of they provide two seemingly opposing perspectives

Antiquities should be given back to their homeland, especially if they were not supposed to be seen by

The archaeological sites that comprise of relics are managed in a similar way to other important items of environmental heritage. They ought to be treated in the similar way and with the same level of assessment and consideration like any other surviving past physical pieces of evidence such as precincts, works, buildings and landscapes. The archeological resources are faced with a wide array of challenges. According to Coningham and Gunawardhana (2013) the major challenges facing the archaeological resources include looting and a high level of destruction. The damages are mainly as a result of the expansion of fields for agricultural purposes and the quarrying the ancient pillars and stone slabs for the purpose of providing building material. The reasons as to why the majority of stupas and image houses have been targeted have been due to their Buddhists relics. Looting of the relics has become a major problem (Coningham and Gunawardhana, 2013). Lacking the necessary manpower and money, looters have managed to dig up Buddhists artifacts and the black market trades of the antiquities have posed major problems in the efforts of nations that want to preserve their national heritage and archeological resources.