HUMANITARIAN AND CRIMINAL PROTECTION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE IN INTERNATIONAL LAW
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32461/2226-3209.1.2018.178783Abstract
Abstract. Cultural heritage is a corpus of tangible and intangible heritage that is inherited from past
generations. It includes signs and properties like places, objects, ceremonies, customs, practices, values and artistic expressions. The importance of cultural heritage is that it is not confined to a definite culture, but it belongs to the mankind as a whole. Thus, the international community has paid attention to the protection of cultural heritage all over the world. The protection has two aspects in the context of international law: humanitarian and criminal. The humanitarian protection is made during armed conflicts, whereas the criminal protection includes both peacetime and wartime. The criminalization of illicit activities against cultural heritage goes back to the Lieber Code of April 24, 1863, also known as instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States during the American Civil War. Since then, considerable developments have taken place in this regard. The two aspects of the issue are discussed in the
present paper. The main purpose of this article is to provide a strict description of the two sorts of protection and evaluate the deficiencies and failure of the provisions on the subject.
Keywords: cultural heritage, tangible heritage, intangible heritage, humanitarian protection, criminal
protection, war crime
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