Cultural Heritage and Legal Mobilisation After Terror: July 22 and the Battle for Y

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article investigates the growing recognition of cultural heritage as a contentious human rights issue. After the bombing of the Norwegian government buildings in Oslo on 22 July 2011, the YBlock, emerged as a cultural heritage object of high symbolic value. The government's megaproject of constructing a new government complex was contested due to its impact on the human right to public space and human rights in public space. Following a lengthy civil society and legal mobilisation campaign to save the Y-Block, it was demolished in 2020. By unpacking three legal arguments put forward to preserve the building, this article contributes to the sociolegal study of legal mobilisation in the Nordic countries and casts light on disputes over cultural heritage, the right to culture, and reconstruction after urban terror. These arguments included the suggestion that a cultural heritage protection process, which had been (illegitimately) halted by the attack, had never formally ended; reference to international human rights norms and transnational policy support; and contestations over process legitimacy, where early ‘hidden' political decisions precluded the YBlock’s preservation. The article concludes that the struggle for the Y-Block was an iconic democratic exercise that reinforced cultural heritage as a collective human rights issue.