The Importance of Cultural Heritage

​The Blue Shield’s work is founded on the belief that cultural heritage – tangible and intangible - is important. It is a vital expression of the culture that makes up unique communities and its loss during conflict and disaster can be catastrophic.
“Why do we feel more pain looking at the image of the destroyed bridge than the image of massacred people? Perhaps because we see our own mortality in the collapse of the bridge. We expect people to die; we count on our lives to end. The destruction of a monument to civilisation is something else.
The bridge in all its beauty and grace was built to outline us; it was an attempt to grasp eternity …
​A dead woman is one of us – but the bridge is all of us forever.”
Croatian writer Slavenka Drauliç 
(in Bevan (2006): The Destruction of Memory. Reaktion Books; 26)​
Cultural heritage is the heritage we have inherited: our legacy, our memories, physical places, objects and intangible beliefs and practices, and so much more. Intangible heritage can often be associated with particular tangible cultural heritage. For example, placing poppies on a war memorial is a practice commemorating an event, but it takes place at a physical location. In Australia, many aboriginal groups have detailed practices passed down for many generations which are integral components of places in the landscape. Our heritage – physical and non-physical – is an important part of who we are and what we identify with, for individuals and communities. 

This cultural identity relies on the memory of communities and individuals: it is key to identity, well-being, decisions and actions. Although memories are not always positive, and can be contested, they are an integral part of individuals, communities and societies. Cultural property is a powerful tool in determining what is remembered – and what is forgotten or obscured. For example, after conflicts and disasters, buildings can provide visible symbols of who is given priority in rebuilding if the community is divided – or who is not given permission at all.

Blue Shield strives to prevent the loss of heritage to communities, recognising that it is a fundamental part of their wellbeing.
There are seven key reasons for this:​
  • Cultural/Society
  • Political uses
  • International Humanitarian Law
  • International Human Rights Law
  • Medical/wellbeing
  • Sustainable economic development
  • Academic value
    ​

Cultural/society

​Cultural property is central to the cultural and social life of communities and at a national level is frequently used as the ‘stage’ for aspects of intangible cultural heritage (for example, national ceremonies often take place at historic buildings). There can, of course, be ‘negative’ issues involved in these associations of tangible and intangible heritage: ISIS used the Roman Theatre at the World Heritage site of Palmyra for mass executions in 2016. More frequently, however, cultural property helps preserve national and local traditions and culture while helping to build a community’s association with its heritage, and thereby creating identity.

Political uses

​Cultural property is often used for political ends. Saddam Hussein deliberately linked himself to ancient Assyrian kings to legitimise his reign, building a palace at the ancient site of Babylon, and inscribing his name on the ancient bricks . It can even act as a catalyst for conflict: Nelson’s Column in Dublin, Ireland, was deliberately bombed in 1966 because of its colonial associations. More positively, cultural property can become a tool to promote mutual recognition and reconciliation through a shared, accepted, memory of a common (or difficult) past. Following the difficulties the Spanish people experienced in reconciling their memories of a bitter civil war, the Spanish government declared 2006 a Year of Memory, and worked hard to try and reconcile the memories and the fallen of both sides. 

international humanitarian law

​Cultural property protection during armed conflict is an obligation under international humanitarian law (IHL). In addition to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in Armed Conflict and its 2 Protocols, cultural property protection is an explicit part of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which includes destruction of historic monuments and religious buildings as war crimes. The Blue Shield has a role to play in debating the balance of military necessity (as defined in IHL) and humanity in each and every armed conflict, all of which will be unique, not least in terms of the military means and methods employed. 

international humanitarian rights

​In addition to its position under IHL, the right to access and enjoy cultural heritage is guaranteed under International Human Rights Law, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This includes the right to understand, visit, make use of, maintain, exchange elements of, and develop cultural heritage, as well as to benefit from your cultural heritage and others’, and has been interpreted as an obligation to design and implement preservation and safeguarding policies and programmes. This view was supported by Resolution 33/20 on Cultural rights and the protection of cultural heritage adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in 2016. You can read more about this in the report presented to the UN by the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights. 

medical/wellbeing

​Research suggests there is a relationship between historic environments and an individual’s ‘wellbeing’. Those who live in historic environments appear to have higher ‘social capital’ - a term which refers to benefits in terms of wellbeing, good health and civil engagement.  Research (also in academia) suggests that such communities tend to be more cohesive, easier to govern and manage and, it has been suggested, tend to be less expensive medically to look after.   

Academic value

​Access to cultural property is critical to our study and understanding of both past and contemporary culture and of what it means to be human. Regardless of whether cultural property is claimed by only a small community or is considered to have value for the whole of humanity, if the physical evidence of past and contemporary culture does not exist, or if the community remembering intangible cultural heritage has been destroyed, a vital element in our ability to understand human society and development has been lost, and with it, a vital piece of who we are.

sustainable economic development

​Tourism is one of the world’s fastest growing industries. A desire to see other people’s culture and heritage is a major element of tourism and in many countries is a large part of a tourism industry that provides a significant proportion of the national economy. Cultural property protection is an important element in protecting individual livelihoods, the national economy, and security.
References for Political Uses:
References for the International Humanitarian Law:
  • Read more about Customary Law, the Geneva Conventions, and the Military Necessity in the Law Library of the BSI website. 

References for the International Human Rights Law:
References for the Medical/Wellbeing:
References for the sustainable Economic Development:
  • Read more about cultural heritage and human rights in the Law Library of the BSI website.