UNESCO

The international community’s
response to destruction
The loss of such cultural treasures, in
these and other countries, deprives
communities of physical evidence and
documentary accounts of their past, but
also of a precious source of social capital
and economic well-being. It is essential
to protect these testimonies of the history
and traditions of our cultures, as they
contribute to our global patrimony and
sense of identity, while also representing
a fundamental source of resilience and
dignity. How do we protect, preserve, and
ensure the transmission of this heritage?
In what way does education play a
central role? These questions were the
focus of ‘Culture and Heritage in Danger:
Education as a Force for Resilience‘, an
event organized by UNESCO in September
as a platform for the exchange of ideas.
In an effort to integrate a concern for
cultural into security policies, the UNESCO
Office in Beirut organized an Awareness-
Raising Seminar on the Implementation
of the 1954 Hague Convention for the
Protection of Cultural Property in the Event
of Armed Conflict and its two Protocols
(1954 and 1999), under the patronage of
the Minister of Culture for Lebanon, and
in partnership with the Organization of
the International Committee of the Blue
Shield. The seminar was aimed at staff of
the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)
and provided participants with a wide and
detailed overview of the Convention’s legal
assets, penalties and best implementation
practices. It focused on military measures,
with practical examples from the Middle
Eastern region whose cultural heritage is
particularly at risk.
Following the international community’s
recognition that illicit trafficking in cultural
property may contribute to financing
terrorism in Iraq and Syria, UNESCO
mobilized its partners to take action in
this regard and successfully advocated for
a world-wide moratorium on the trade
in Iraqi and Syrian cultural property, as
set forth in groundbreaking UN Security
Council Resolution 2199, adopted on
12 February under Chapter VII of the UN
Charter. For the first time, the link between
illicit trafficking of cultural property and
terrorism is explicitly recognized as a threat
and UNESCO, together with INTERPOL, is
entrusted with assisting Member States
in implementing the relevant paragraph
of this binding Resolution. Welcoming
the role given to UNESCO by the Security
Council, the Director-General reaffirmed
the Organization’s commitment ‘to stand by
Member States to ensure the full respect of
the UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means
of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit
Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership
of Cultural Property.‘ She subsequently
announced the launch by UNESCO of a
coalition to stop this illegal trade, whose
members include the UN Office on Drugs
and Crime (UNODC), the World Customs
Organization, INTERPOL, the International
Council of Museums (ICOM),
the International Council on Monuments
and Sites (ICOMOS), and representatives of
countries bordering Syria and Iraq.
In June, the Director-General
launched the Global Coalition ‘Unite for
Heritage‘ in the framework of the 39th
session of the World Heritage Committee
in Bonn (Germany). The Coalition aims
at strengthening UNESCO’s action for
the protection of culture in emergency
An international competition
for the future of Bamiyan (Afghanistan)
An international jury chose the winning entry in a competition
organized by UNESCO to design a Cultural Centre for Bamiyan
(Afghanistan). An Argentina-based architecture team beat
1,070 other proposals from 117 countries. The winning design,
Descriptive Memory: The Eternal Presence of Absence, blends perfectly
into the landscape, takes advantage of thermal inertia and ground
insulation, and gives a nod to the ancient local building traditions.
The Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, gave his approval to the
winning design, thanked UNESCO for its contribution, and expressed
his dedication to protecting Afghanistan’s cultural heritage.
situations by engaging with a wide array
of partners, not only from the culture
and heritage sector, but also from
security and humanitarian organizations,
governments, the private sector, civil
society and the media. With a view to
more effectively protecting cultural
assets in conflict situations, ensuring
that cultural rights of refugees or
displaced persons are respected, raising
awareness among youth of the value
of culture and of inclusive, open and
pluralistic societies, the Director-General
declared that, ‘the threat is global and
our response must be global…Our main
challenge is to succeed in getting all
the players involved in this struggle to
work together: police, customs officials,
museums, governments, actors from
the cultural, humanitarian and security
sectors, civil society and the media.‘
© UNESCO/Bamiyan Cultural Centre
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