The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
Article 5
of The 1907 Hague Convention IX (Concerning Bombardment by Naval
Forces
in Time of
War) provides:
“In
bombardments by naval forces all the necessary measures must be
taken by the
commander
to spare as far as possible sacred edifices, buildings used for
artistic
purposes,
historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick or
wounded
are
collected, on the understanding that they are not used at the same
time for
military purposes.”
Further
protection for historic monuments and places of worship is provided
by Article 53
of First
Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which states that,
without prejudice
to the
provisions of the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural
Property in the
Event of
Armed Conflict of 14 May 1954, and of other international
instruments, it is
prohibited:
“(a) to
commit any acts of hostility directed against the historic
monuments, works
of art or
places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual
heritage
of
peoples;
(b) to use
such objects in support of the military effort;
(c) to make
such objects the object of reprisals.”283
The First
Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, according to its terms, entered
into force
on 7
December 1978. It was ratified by the UK on 28 January
1998.
In 1954 the
terms of the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in
the Event of
Armed
Conflict were agreed at an Intergovernmental Conference at the
Hague (“the 1954
Hague
Convention”).
Under the
terms of the Convention “Cultural property” was defined in Article
1 as
comprising:
“(a)
movable or immovable property of great importance to the cultural
heritage
of every
people, such as monuments of architecture, art or history,
whether
religious
or secular; archaeological sites; groups of buildings which, as a
whole,
are of
historical or artistic interest; works of art; manuscripts, books,
and other
objects of
artistic, historical or archaeological interest; as well as
scientific
collections
and important collections of books or archives or of reproductions
of
[such]
property…”;
“(b)
buildings whose main and effective purpose is to preserve or
exhibit the movable
cultural
property defined in sub-paragraph (a) such as museums, large
libraries
and
depositories of archives, and refuges intended to shelter, in the
event of
armed
conflict, the movable cultural property defined in sub-paragraph
(a);
(c) centres
containing a large amount of cultural property as defined in
sub-
paragraphs
(a) and (b) …”
283
Protocol
Additional (1) to the Geneva Conventions, Article 53, 12 August
1949.
516