The Soldier and the Curator: The Challenges of Defending Cultural Property in Conflict Areas

Abstract

Over the last years, the wave of terrorist attacks against cultural artefacts in Mali, Iraq or Syria has put the defence of cultural heritage on the diplomatic agenda. In the eyes of decision-makers, these destructions demonstrated that heritage was not a collateral damage of war but one of its ostentatious targets. If these developments triggered a momentum on the international stage to launch new policy initiatives, the phenomenon is by no means unprecedented as monuments have been targeted throughout history. Specifically, the notion of protecting cultural property appeared in the eighteenth century in the fallout of the French Revolution with political thinkers considering this mission a collective moral duty. Despite this contemporary momentum, major challenges remain such as the issue of governance among all the stakeholders, the cultural clash between curatorial and military communities, the applicability of the legal framework in the current security environment and finally the operational complexity of defending artefacts in conflict zones.