A distinctive emblem, a special register and two Protocols: the treaty that shields heritage in war

Background

Heritage destroyed in war weakens communities long after the fighting ends, and the treaty written to answer that was adopted in 1954 under the auspices of UNESCO to shield cultural property once an armed conflict begins. It is now usually called the 1954 Hague Convention, and UNESCO describes it as the first and most comprehensive multilateral treaty given over wholly to protecting cultural heritage in peacetime as much as during an armed conflict. What it covers is broad: books and manuscripts, works of art, archaeological sites, monuments of architecture, art or history, scientific collections of any kind, and other objects of artistic or archaeological worth, whatever their origin or ownership. States Parties take preventive steps in advance, preparing inventories and planning for fire or the collapse of buildings, and arranging to move movable property to places of safety. They also undertake not to use such property in ways that expose it to destruction and not to direct acts of hostility against it. Property of very high importance can be entered on the International Register of Cultural Property under Special Protection, while important buildings and monuments may be given a distinctive emblem of the Convention to carry. Other duties include setting up special units inside the armed forces, providing places of refuge, fixing sanctions for breaches and spreading knowledge of the Convention among heritage professionals and military or law-enforcement agencies. Two Protocols sit alongside the Convention, and the Second Protocol of 1999 set up a committee to oversee the protection of cultural property once fighting begins.