The Genesis of the Legal Protection of Cultural Goods During Armed Conflict: Evolution and Perspectives (Part I)

Abstract

Cultural goods have unfortunately always been a target for belligerent parties during armed conflicts throughout history, despite the fact that they knew very well that ensuring their protection had an imperative character, whether we refer to customary commitments, either conventional. However, the reality of armed conflicts remains a harsh one although evolving legal and philosophical thinking has strongly influenced the concept of the `laws and customs` of war from the perspective of `humanizing` armed conflicts. The efforts made by international actors in connecting the national and international normative framework in the matter of the protection of cultural goods to the rigors of armed conflicts have materialized in an appreciable number of agreements, documents of a different kind adopted at the international level, among which the Convention at the Hague of 1954, Additional Protocol I of 1954 and Additional Protocol II of 1999.