Protection of Cultural Property: The Legal Aspects

• Author: Jan Hladik
• Position: Program Specialist, International Standards Section, Division of Cultural Heritage, United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
• Pages: 319-329

XVIII

Protection of Cultural Property:

The Legal Aspects

Jan Hladfk1

Dr.Jean-Philippe Lavoyer's paper, Should International Humanitarian Law

be Reaffirmed, Clarified or Developed?,2provides an excellent overview of

international humanitarian law and touches briefly on the need for the protection

of cultural property during armed conflict.

The principal law of war treaty provisions protecting cultural property are

found in the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the

Event ofArmed Conflict (Hague Convention) 3;its First Protocol,4also adopted in

1954; and its Second Protocol of 1999. 5The following substantive areas of the

Hague Convention and the Second Protocol are, in my view, those that have the

primary impact on the conduct of military operations:

•Safeguarding of cultural property (Article 3of the Hague Convention and

Article 5of the Second Protocol);

•Respect for cultural property (Article 4of the Hague Convention and

Articles 6, 7and 8of the Second Protocol);

•Military measures (Articles 7and 25 of the Hague Convention);

•Protection of cultural property in occupied territory (Article 5of the Hague

Convention and Article 9of the Second Protocol);