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Showing posts with label armed conflict. Show all posts
Showing posts with label armed conflict. Show all posts

December 12, 2012

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Erik Nemeth on "The Diplomatic Case for Repatriating Art and Antiquities" in U.S. News

Erik Nemeth, formerly with the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, is a trustee of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art and an adjunct international security policy analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. Here's a link to Nemeth's article in U.S. News & World Report on "The Diplomatic Power of Art" which begins here:
Even as cultural property faces immediate peril today in conflict zones like Syria and Mali, there is anecdotal evidence that some nations are awakening to the diplomatic and foreign policy benefits that can flow from the repatriation of cultural patrimony.
While on a different scale from World War II, historic structures, religious monuments, and other priceless antiquities continue to suffer collateral damage and exploitation in armed conflict. Antiquities have been stolen, smuggled and sold in what is a reported multibillion dollar underground market. They have become the illicit prizes of private collectors and the subject of legal claims against museums.
So it goes in Syria, where wartime damage to World Heritage Sites, such as Krak des Chevaliers, seems intractable. In northern Mali, too, religious strife has brought ruin to centuries-old, historic shrines in Timbuktu. Where is the constructive potential of cultural property?

April 1, 2012

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Palmyra and other Syrian Cultural Heritage at Risk During Armed Conflict; UNESCO asks Syrian authorities to respect international cultural property protection conventions they have signed since 1954

by Catherine Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief

Since early March, archaeologists, government officials and Syrian expatriates have been alarmed at the threat to cultural property sites in Syria after more than a year of civil conflict.  UNESCO has issued a request to the Syrian authorities to protect their cultural heritage in accordance with the international cultural property protection conventions they have signed since 1954.

Global Heritage Fund blogged on March 5, 2012 that the Syrian army was attacking Palmyra's Roman Ruins.  According to the report, the Syrian army has set itself up in a hilltop citadel and firing into the ancient ruins. 

Palmyra, located about 200 kilometers northeast of Damascus, an ancient Roman trading center accommodating caravans between Persia and the Mediterranean countries flourished in the 1st through the 3rd centuries.  It was one of the most important cultural centers of the ancient world.  It is a national monument and since 1980 included on UNESCO's World Heritage list.

According to the Global Heritage Network, "Protestors have made use of this UNESCO World Heritage Site during recent protests on December 30th of 2011.

On March 24, Popular Archaeology wrote in "Leaked Government Memo Warns of Organized Looting in Syria" that government is concerned that the current civil conflict in Syria will increase damage and theft from archaeological sites.  Syria has 25 antiquities museums throughout the country near the original excavation sites.

Kate Deimling for ARTINFO France reported March 27th that Syrian activists had appealed to UNESCO for financial aid to protect the country's ancient sites. One archaeologist reported that looting "takes place in the form of direct attacks on specific sites or clandestine searches of in storehouses holding historic pieces."

"The Syrian Expatriates Organization (SEO) is disturbed by the Assad regime's deliberate destruction and failure to preserve Syria's great archaeological sites and ancient antiquities," according to a press release dated March 28.  SEO asked that UNESCO issue a statement "condemning the Syrian government's actions regarding the potential loss of cultural property and for help in assessing the damage "as soon as the situation allows".

On March 30, the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, appealed for protection of Syria's cultural heritage:
Earlier this year, UNESCO alerted the Syrian authorities, through their representative at UNESCO, about their responsibility to ensure the protection of cultural heritage.  'This situation is becoming more crucial by the hour,' stated the Director-General. 'I urge the Syrian authorities to respect the international conventions they have signed, in particular the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Properties in the Event of Armed Conflict, the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970), and the 1972 World Heritage Convention. 
In the framework of the 1970 Convention, the Director-General has already contacted the World Customs Organization, INTERPOL, and the specialized heritage police of France and Italy to alert them to objects from Syria that could appear on the international antiquities market.  She has also called for the mobilization of all UNESCO's partners to ensure the safeguarding of this heritage.
The photos (by Catherine Sezgin) published here are second century funeral monuments from Palmyra on permanent display in January at Istanbul's Archaeological Museum.


March 29, 2012

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Catching up with Judge Tompkins About his "Art Crime during Armed Conflict" course at the University of Waikato's Law School


University of Waikato's Law School
Judge Arthur Tompkins, an instructor at ARCA's Postgraduate Certificate Program in International Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection Studies, also taught a course in February in his home country.  ARCA Blog caught up with him to see how it went in New Zealand.

Tell us about the Art Crime course you presented earlier this year at the University of Waikato?

The University of Waikato's Law School hosted the course and offered it as a credit course to their own students.  It was also offered as a non-credit coruse through the Continuing Education arm of the University. The course was entitled "Art Crime during Armed Conflict", and, similarly to the course I teach in Amelia as part of the ARCA Postgraduate, it was a five-day intensive course, comprising 5 hours of teaching each day for a week during the height of our Southern Hemisphere summer. We cover two thousand years of the history of art crime during war, and the international and private law responses to it. And all in five fun-filled and fascinating days! 

We ended up with 16 students in the group, from three countries and two hemispheres, with the largest sub-group being law students (I was teaching the course within a Law School, after all!). But the class also included a working artist, two art historians, a police officer, a doctor, an art gallery director, a cultural heritage worker, and others.  It all made for a vibrant and energetic group, and we had some spirited discussions!  And on the last day, ARCA's Noah Charney was able to join us, via Skype, from Slovenia, which was a real highlight.

University of Waikato's campus
At least two of the group will be in Amelia for this year's Art Crime Conference on 23/24 June, and in addition, in the last few days, I have learnt that one of the group has been accepted into the full ARCA Postgraduate Program, so will get to spend the entire Italian summer living and studying in Amelia.

It is likely that the course will be offered every second year at Waikato University, so the next occasion will be in February 2014. I am presently investigating offering a similar course elsewhere in New Zealand in the intervening year.

What time period do students seem most interested in? Nazi theft?

The students were from a wide range of backgrounds and interests, as I said, and I think that as a result no one area or era stood out.  They have written (or are writing - the assignments from the for-credit students are due soon!) assignments on an equally wide range or topics - which is, I think, a testament to the breadth of scholarship that falls under the art crime umbrella.  And because the course covers not only the historical background to art crimes during wars over the centuries, but also the international and national legal responses, there is something of real interest there for everyone.

What do you think are the most contentious legal issues involved in conflict art?

Two difficult issues continue stand out for me - first, the return of objects taken during past armed conflict, that are held currently by a state or national institution, and where there is a call for return.  In that context no issue of private ownership arises, but rather the issue revolves around often contentious questions of the principles underlying the legal structures around the state's continued retention of the object, and the ability or willingness of a state, or its politicians, to relinquish possession. Secondly, the spectrum of responses by legal systems around the world to the bona fide purchaser rule - where someone has paid a reasonable price without knowledge of the fact that the item had in the past been stolen, do they or should they prevail over the original, dispossessed owner's rights? Different legal systems around the world adopt often mutually exclusive positions on this issue, and despite decades of work, the gulf remains unbridged.  We need to find some way of reconciling the irreconcilable!

In 2009 you spoke at the International Art Crime Conference in Amelia about a proposed International Art Crime Tribunal.  As you have now taught this course three times, how have your ideas about an IACT evolved? What would it take to make it happen and what do you think would be some of the first cases that you would like to see be dealt with?

I would still love to see such a Tribunal established, and nothing that I have seen or read or heard over the last three years has changed that view - to the contrary, there is still much to recommend it.  The United Kingdom's Spoliation Panel has shown that a tribunal can effectively apply both legal and moral criteria when resolving claims to disputed art, and, whilst effective in some cases, the litigation experience in the United States shows that the resolution of such disputes by "traditional" adversarial litigation brings with it inevitable constraints, in terms of access to justice, the restrictions inherent in the rules of evidence a court applies, and a likely win/lose result paradigm.  

What would it need to make this happen? As I said to the ARCA Conference in 2010, it needs a champion on the world stage, and a real commitment by a group of states with a single voice in the forums of international law - particularly the United Nations and within that, UNESCO - to make it happen.  Where either of those might be found, I do not know.  Until then, it will remain a lonely idea wandering at large in the world, although I was very heartened to hear Pablo Ferri support the idea at last year's ARCA Conference!  

By the way, I still think, for a whole lot of reasons, that Florence would be a very suitable seat for such a Tribunal!

July 8, 2011

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Mark Durney, Larry Rothfield, and Katharyn Hanson Will Discuss "Cultural Heritage and Armed Conflict" at ARCA's Third Annual International Art Crime Conference on July 10

Mark Durney, Larry Rothfield and Katharyn Hanson will participate in the panel, "Cultural Heritage and Armed Conflict" at ARCA's third annual International Art Crime Conference on Sunday, July 10, in Amelia.

Mark Durney, ARCA's Business and Admissions Director at ARCA, has assisted with the ARCA Postgraduate Certificate since 2009. He has published a number of articles in the Journal of Art Crime, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, Crime, Law and Social Change, and the American Society of International Law Cultural Heritage and Arts Review. In 2010, he was invited to moderate the Museum Security Network, which redistributes news related to cultural property protection, preservation, and security. The MSN is recognized as a key heritage resource by UNESCO, the Smithsonian, the Getty, and the Museums Association, among many other organizations. Since 2008, he has maintained the site Art Theft Central, which delivers news and insights on the field of art crime.
"In light of the recent Egyptian crisis that featured mixed reports made by journalists, culture leaders, and archaeologists, among others related to the uncertain status of the country's cultural institutions and sites, it is all the more relevant to discuss the importance of maintaining accurate collection inventories. They play a critical role in the aftermath of any theft, natural disaster, or period of civil unrest. This paper utilizes quantitative as well as qualitative evidence to underscore the benefits derived from maintaining comprehensive documentation and collection inventories."
Larry Rothfield is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago, where he co-founded and directed the Cultural Policy Center from 1999-2008. He has published on a wide array of subjects in cultural policy. His last book, The Rape of Mesopotamia (University of Chicago Press, 2009) offers a behind-the-scenes look at the causes for the failure of US forces to secure the Iraq National Museum and the country's archaeological sites from looters in the wake of the 2003 invasion. Rothfield also edited a volume of essays on this topic, Antiquities Under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection after the Iraq War (Altamira Press, 2008), focusing on the policy changes that need to be made by various stakeholders -- ranging from war-planners and State Department bureaucrats to cultural heritage NGOs -- to ensure that the disaster suffered by Iraq is not repeated ever again. The theft of antiquities in time of war is a special case of the problem of market-driven looting, and Rothfield's new project seeks better policy options for bringing looting under control, based on a clearer understanding of the complicated economic incentives involved.
"The recent revolution in Egypt provided a natural experiment or stress test of the security system that normally protects antiquities, whether in museums, or on sites or remote storerooms. What can we learn from the looting of the Cairo Museum (and from storerooms and archaeological sites around the country) about how other heritage professionals could and should be planning ahead to cope with similar situations of political instability that might strike their country?"
Katharyn Hanson is a Ph.D. candidate in Mesopotamian Archaeology at the University of Chicago. Her dissertation is entitled: Considerations of Cultural Heritage: Threats to Mesopotamian Archaeological Sites. She is also the co-curator of the University’s Oriental Institute Museum special exhibit: Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past. Katharyn is also co-editor of the exhibit volume. She has published on cultural heritage protection as well as related policy issues. Despite her abiding interest in policy, her true passion is archaeological fieldwork. To date, she has excavated in 6 countries on 3 continents. Her most recent fieldwork has been in Syria on agricultural damage to Mesopotamian sites.
"In April 2003, the looted Iraq National Museum in Baghdad briefly focused international media attention on the plight of Iraq’s cultural heritage. This theft and destruction is only one part of a much larger problem. The looting of archaeological sites throughout the country poses a continuing threat to Iraq’s past. Although the initial flurry of destruction has subsided, important archaeological sites continue to be looted. While we will never fully know the extent of the material and information stolen from these sites, satellite imagery allows us an opportunity to better understand which sites were targets, when looters were active, and what type of material is reaching the market. While it is important to increase awareness about these current patterns in looting and the market for artifacts stolen from Iraq, it is also necessary to discuss the tools available to help prevent this destruction. Among these tools are recent developments in international and U.S. legal framework to help protect Iraq’s cultural heritage. As we begin to address the damage to cultural heritage sites other areas with recent unrest what can we learn from these tools created in response to the loss in Iraq?"

June 19, 2011

Sunday, June 19, 2011 - ,,,,, No comments

Current conflict in Libya puts Greek and Roman ruins at risk

by Rez Hamilton, ARCA Blog Contributor

This is an extract taken from, "Military use of ancient ruins during conflict" submitted for ARCA's course, "Art Crime in War" taught by Judge Arthur Tompkins, 2011.

Recently, international news has brought attention to the ancient city of Leptis Magna in modern day Libya, an archeological site that has been valued for its beauty and almost unheard of completeness. Leptis Magna is unfortunately located between two combating strongholds: Tripoli (about sixty miles away from the ancient ruins) and Misratah (currently held by rebel forces), and at the time of this report is still under the hold of Muammar Gaddafi. The current conflict in Libya which has been ongoing for the past several months has recently had journalists and archeologists alarmed that rumors pertaining to the Gaddafi regime’s use of this ancient site as a staging point for munitions and/or for military operational use are true.

Sadly, the ancient site of Leptis Magna has the potential of being irrevocably damaged by modern warfare having previously survived and persevered since the first recorded conflict against the Byzantines in the first millennium BC and just shy of its 30-year anniversary of being an UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Security and Cultural Organization) World Heritage Site. To give some scope to its scale and historical importance, Leptis Magna used to be Roman’s third largest and influential city on the African continent, following Alexandria and Carthage. Another UNESCO site that was declared in Libya during 1982 is Cyrene, which is currently a stronghold of rebel forces and which also has a history of military presence among its ancient ruins during World War II. With NATO’s ongoing conflict against the Muammar Gaddafi regime, a statement has been released which indicates that regardless of the location of resistant positions, NATO forces will strike, which means not even UNESCO heritage sites are safe.

Are the rumors true? According to reporters who attended a Libyan government sponsored tour of Leptis Magna last Wednesday, no military presence of personnel or munitions were seen. However, one must be considerate of the fact that due to the tour being Gaddafi regime sponsored, proof may have been taken away prior to the reporters arrival and/or may have been moved onto or replaced to the site soon after the camera crews had departed. In the meantime, the world must hope that the use of the site as a military show of force or for storage will never come to pass.

A military’s use of ancient ruins during conflict is not new nor is it unusual. One famous example which was used in order to justify the removal of the famed Elgin Marbles now housed in the British Museum in the UK, was when the Turks were using the Parthenon as munitions storage. While in storage, an accidental ignition of some of the weapons directly damaged the site. Ongoing arguments abound on the topic of its repatriation, and on whether or not Lord Elgin saved the marbles from further destruction.

Modern warfare cannot and will not allow the time nor will it lend protection to ancient sites, regardless of conventions and treaties. Nothing is unconditionally safe during conflict and as the record of the current regime has showed its marked carelessness for human life, it is safe to assume that not even ancient relics will be preserved. We can only hope that should any evil befall the ruins as the conflict continues that there will be enough left to put the pieces back together and that no plunder occur in the interim which would scatter the remains to the four corners of the earth for those with little care of provenance and wealthy enough to afford illicit antiquities. Should the plunder come to pass, then the ancient ruins will probably be forever ruined with little chance of ever reacquiring all the pieces to the heralded Leptis Magna, one of the most complete archeological sites known in modern times.

To personally share your thoughts/comments along with any examples of other specific ancient ruins which were used by the military in times of conflict (besides the parthenon), please email me at: rez.hamilton@gmail.com

Works Cited:

· 1943, January. "Leptis Magna at Risk: History Repeats." Project Patrimonio. Word Press, 14 June 2011. Web. 18 June 2011.
· "Archaeological Site of Leptis Magna." UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Web. 18 June 2011.
· Charman-Smith, Mary. "The Ancient Ruins of Leptis Magna, Libya | Eyeflare.com." Eyeflare.com. 31 Jan. 2011. Web. 18 June 2011.
· Coghlan, Tom. "Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi Hides Grad Missiles from NATO Raids in the Ruins of Leptis Magna « Shabab Libya." Shabab Libya. The Times, 14 June 2011. Web. 18 June 2011.
· Hewton, Terry. "Libya: Putting Ancient Ruins into a Contemporary PerspectiveAt Leptis Magna Ancient Romans, Early Christians and Modern Libyans Meet." Guardian [London] 23 Nov. 2010, World News sec. Guardian | Guardian.co.uk. 23 Nov. 2010. Web. 18 June 2011. 
· Hughes, Peter. "Libya: Ancient Ruins in African Sand." Telegraph [London] 28 May 2008, Travel: Activity and Adventure sec. Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph. 28 May 2008. Web. 18 June 2011. .
· Londono, Ernesto, and Michael Birnbaum. "Fear for Libya’s Roman Ruins - The Washington Post." The Washington Post. 16 June 2011. Web. 18 June 2011. .
· Mustich, Emma. "Is Gadhafi Putting Ancient Ruins of Leptis Magna at Risk?" Web log post. The Archaeology News Network. 14 June 2011. Web. 18 June 2011. .
· Tharoor, Ishaan. "With Roman Ruins Under Threat, Libya’s Ancient Past Presses Against Its Present - Global Spin - TIME.com." Global Spin - A Blog about the World, Its People and Its Politics - TIME.com. Time Magazine, 14 June 2011. Web. 18 June 2011. http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/06/14/with-roman-ruins-under-threat-libyas-ancient-past-presses-against-its-present/.

More information about the archaeological site of Leptis Magna may be found on the UNESCO site here.

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