Book Description

"Cultural heritage has become increasingly "conflict prone". Today, systematic exploitation, manipulation, attacks, and destruction of cultural heritage by states and non-state actors form part of most violent conflicts across the world. Such acts are often intentional and based on well-planned strategies for inflicting harm on groups of people and communities. We have therefore progressed from seeing conflict-related destruction of cultural heritage just as a "cultural tragedy" to understanding it also as a "security issue." It is a shift from protecting cultural property from the harms of war for the sake of cultural property itself to viewing it as intricately connected to the broader peace and security agenda. Concerns about cultural heritage have migrated beyond the cultural sphere to sectors dealing with peace and security and dovetails with issue such the protection of civilians, the financing of terrorism, societal resilience, post-conflict reconciliation, hybrid warfare, and the geopolitics of territorial conflicts. This volume seeks to deepen our understanding of this evolving nexus between cultural heritage and security in the twenty-first century. It offers a collection of chapters that aims to open new horizons for thinking about the relationship between cultural heritage, security, and international law. Coming from a variety of disciplines and perspectives, the chapters examine a complicated set of relationships between, on the one hand, deliberate violence to cultural heritage in times of conflict, and, on the other, basic societal values, legal principles, protection, and security concerns"--