From willett@suac.ac.jp Sun Apr 13 01:49:00 2003 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.133]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW03.03/8.12.1+UW03.02) with ESMTP id h3D8mxZv039490 for ; Sun, 13 Apr 2003 01:48:59 -0700 Received: from somail.suac.ac.jp (somail.suac.ac.jp [202.223.132.34]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW03.04/8.12.1+UW03.02) with ESMTP id h3D8mskB018115 for ; Sun, 13 Apr 2003 01:48:56 -0700 Received: from sfw ([202.223.132.33]) by somail.suac.ac.jp (8.9.3+3.2W/3.7W) with SMTP id RAA00016 for ; Sun, 13 Apr 2003 17:48:48 +0900 (JST) Received: from c0604 ([172.16.65.182]) by simail2.ist.suac.ac.jp (Mirapoint) with ESMTP id AKM32376 (AUTH k0194002); Sun, 13 Apr 2003 17:48:47 +0900 (JST) From: "Steven J. Willett" To: classics@u.washington.edu Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 17:21:38 +0900 MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Law on protection of cultural properties Message-ID: <3E999CA2.3338.62FF42A@localhost> X-pmrqc: 1 X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v4.02) Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-description: Mail message body Thanks to Ricky Torrey for citing the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property (1954). This convention was in fact the fourth in a series dating back to 1899 and is officially supplementary to the Washington Pact of 1935. Here is the official language of the relevant articles on the duty to protect cultural properties, omitting Article 27 in Hague 1899 and 1907 that prohibits bombardment of such properties: Hague 29 April 1899 Article 55 The occupying State shall only be regarded as administrator and usufructuary of the public buildings, real property, forests, and agricultural works belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied country. It must protect the capital of these properties, and administer it according to the rules of usufruct. Article 56 The property of the communes, that of religious, charitable, and educational institutions, and those of arts and science, even when State property, shall be treated as private property. All seizure of, and destruction, or intentional damage done to such institutions, to historical monuments, works of art or science, is prohibited, and should be made the subject of proceedings. Hague 18 October 1907 Art. 55. The occupying State shall be regarded only as administrator and usufructuary of public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct. Art. 56.The property of municipalities, that of institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences, even when State property, shall be treated as private property. All seizure of, destruction or wilful damage done to institutions of this character, historic monuments, works of art and science, is forbidden, and should be made the subject of legal proceedings. Washington Pact 15 April 1935 (Roerich Pact) Article I The historic monuments, museums, scientific, artistic, educational and cultural institutions shall be considered as neutral and as such respected and protected by belligerents. The same respect and protection shall be due to the personnel of the institutions mentioned above. The same respect and protection shall be accorded to the historic monuments, museums, scientific, artistic, educational and cultural institutions in time of peace as well as in war. The US is the signatory to all these conventions and duty-bound to honor them in Iraq. Having violated virtually every article in the Geneva Convention (III) on the treatment of prisoners of war at Camp X-Ray, I do not expect any brisk exertion for museums and cultural properties. One can only hope that at least hospitals and medical establishments will be protected, though they will all have to be resupplied due to looting. I might add that Blair's claim on April 11 that looting was limited to some hospitals that served the Iraqi elite is a lie. ====================================== Steven J. Willett Shizuoka University of Art and Culture 1794-1 Noguchi-cho, Hamamatsu City Japan 430-8533 Tel/Autofax: (53) 457-6142 Japan email: willett@suac.ac.jp US email: willettstevenj@qwest.net .