1 March 2023, 18:15-20:00
Register start 30 January 2023
Register end 28 February 2023
Event
ICRC
Intentional destruction of cultural heritage has a long history. Contemporary examples include the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, mosques in Xinjiang, China, mausoleums in Timbuktu, Mali, and Greco-Roman remains in Syria. Cultural heritage destruction invariably accompanies assaults on civilians, making heritage attacks impossible to disentangle from the mass atrocities of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. Both seek to eliminate people and the heritage with which they identify.
The new book Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities, edited by James Cuno and Thomas G. Weiss, assembles thirty-eight experts from the heritage, social science, humanitarian, legal, and military communities. Focusing on immovable cultural heritage vulnerable to attack, the volume’s guiding framework is the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a United Nations resolution adopted unanimously in 2005 to permit international intervention against crimes of war or genocide.
Essays consider the global value of cultural heritage and document recent attacks on people and sites in China, Guatemala, Iraq, Mali, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen. Comprehensive sections on vulnerable populations as well as the role of international law and the military offer readers critical insights and point toward research, policy, and action agendas to protect both people and cultural heritage.
At this book launch – co-organized with the University of Geneva Law Faculty, the UNESCO Chair in the International Law of the Protection of Cultural Heritage at the University of Geneva and Getty Publications – one of the book’s editors will discuss cultural heritage and mass atrocities with contributors to the book and specialists.
Our podcast In and Around War(s) returns for a third season with the first episode discussing the weaponization of water.
ICRC
We are excited to announce the launch of a new project consisting of the publication of a yearly global annual report assessing compliance with international humanitarian law in contemporary armed conflicts.
UN Photo/Violaine Martin
The IHL-EP works to strengthen the capacity of human rights mechanisms to incorporate IHL into their work in an efficacious and comprehensive manner. By so doing, it aims to address the normative and practical challenges that human rights bodies encounter when dealing with cases in which IHL applies.
Shutterstock
This project will explore humanitarian consequences and protection needs caused by the digitalization of armed conflicts and the extent to which these needs are addressed by international law, especially international humanitarian law.