1. Apart from being in the Argentine Republic, what do the Nicolás Avellaneda transporter bridge and the museum ship Frigate Presidente Sarmiento - both located in Buenos Aires - have in common, or the Cathedral and the Cabildo of San Salvador de Jujuy, the Curuchet house and the building of the Rectorate of the National University of La Plata, located in the province of Buenos Aires, and even the Río Negro Lighthouse, in Viedma, and the Civic Center and the Llao Llao hotel in Bariloche, in the province of Río Negro?
And the question is more extensive: what links them to the Cathedral of Cusco and the Municipal Theatre of Lima, in Peru; to the Carondelet Palace, in the historic centre of Quito - Ecuador; to the Yaguarón temple and the Jesuit missions of Jesús and Trinidad in Paraguay; to the Fort of Samaipata, in Bolivia, and to the pre-Hispanic city of Teotihuacán and the archaeological monuments zone of Xochicalco in Mexico?
They are united by the possession of an emblematic mark; all of them are marked with the blue UNESCO shield, an instrument provided for in the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The importance lies in the fact that it represents the highest level of international protection that is conferred on a cultural asset.
This emblem was designed to act as a mark of distinction and protection for each of the cultural assets with exceptional characteristics that are registered as such. The importance of this marking is evident; however, little is known about the meaning and scope of this peculiar identification.
2. Within the set of material things that make up the cultural heritage, some works of engineering, architecture or art stand out for various reasons; the groups that they make up due to their grouping and certain objects that, due to their determining characteristics, have a special value in the community, where they are distinguished from other similar things [they may be similar but not identical], a valid reason to preserve them. They are recognized and given differentiated protection.
These are emblematic works, which externalize distinctive features to attribute them cultural, historical, urban, aesthetic, functional or symbolic prominence. Because of this characterization, they become different, valued, irreplaceable works.
For this reason, with the objective of protecting their integrity and their persistence, an international legal system was structured that organizes various forms of protection of those objects. Some mechanisms are permanent and others, more specific, temporary, but all seek to avoid the damage that any of those goods, buildings or differentiated sites could suffer at certain times.
There are many and varied causes of possible damage to material cultural heritage, generally differentiating between two causes. Those that are inevitable - natural phenomena such as earthquakes or natural disasters and those caused by climate change - and those that arise from human intervention - looting and illicit trafficking of cultural property, new urban development plans, excessive tourism or wars and armed conflicts - [1]. The international laws referred to in the previous paragraph take charge of the phenomenon, although this happens through a fragmented and sometimes contradictory system [2].
Thus, there are norms [i] to repair the consequences of inevitable causes and [ii] others referring to anthropic damage. The latter allow both [ii.a] to organize and execute concrete actions to prevent environmental damage that is produced by human intervention and impacts on specially protected cultural property, as well as [ii.b] to mitigate its effects and [ii.c], eventually, to punish its generators.
The issue of the placement of the UNESCO blue shield is directly linked to these latest provisions, which indicate the human origin of the damage to heritage; it is both an honorary emblem - because it indicates the recognition of the exceptional value of the site - and a means of warning and protection - due to the obligations assumed by the States Parties to the Convention - both in times of peace and in times of armed conflict.
3. The Second World War left its mark on cultural heritage in almost all of Europe; period photos and films, accounts concurrent with and after the conflict and a special chapter of the Nuremberg Tribunal's verdict show this barbarity. Based on this knowledge and after a thorough verification of the irreparable damage caused by the war, the States Parties to the UN agreed to sign an instrument that would regulate, in an emphatic and uniform manner throughout the planet, the care of valuable cultural assets, outstanding buildings and emblematic constructions in the event of a new armed conflict.
In this context, immediately after those evils, the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict was concluded, signed on May 14, 1954 by 49 States, and today there are 149 full members. It has two related instruments: the Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, also from May 1954, and the Second Protocol to the Hague Convention of 1954 for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, from May 26, 1999 [3].
The idea of protecting cultural property in particular from damage caused by war and other warlike actions was not unheard of. The recent antecedents of the 1954 Convention can be seen, among other instruments, in the so-called "Lieber Instructions" - of 1863, given to the American troops in the Civil War - in the Hague Peace Conventions of 1889 and 1907 - which contain specific provisions on the subject - and in the so-called "Roerich Pact" - of 1935, still in force for the American countries that signed it. In addition, it is impossible to forget the London declaration of 5.1.1943 on the precautions that the contenders should take during the conflict that was developing in order not to damage significant cultural property, and the Armistice instruments of August 1945, as well as the sentence of the Nuremberg Tribunal, of September-October 1946 [4].
One of the decisions adopted in 1954 was to clearly identify the assets that, due to their conditions and qualities, should be preserved from any damage both in peacetime and during wartime, and those that should be avoided as a military objective during an armed conflict. To achieve this identification with a distinctive symbol, a three-stage procedure was established.
In principle, each State Party that claims to have outstanding assets in its territory may propose their evaluation to the technical bodies of the Convention - first stage; if the asset is considered to be of great importance or of great interest to the culture of peoples, it will be included in the protection regulated by the Convention and its registration in a register will be arranged - second action; and, finally, to effectively expose this outstanding position of the asset to the international community, a visible mark will be placed on it or in the place - third stage. This mark of distinction and protection is the blue shield, to which these lines are dedicated.
4. The Convention and its complementary instruments provide for the placement of the UNESCO blue shield on sites or buildings that “are of great importance to the cultural heritage of peoples”, where they “offer great historical or artistic interest” [art. 1.a], on those “buildings whose principal and effective purpose is to preserve or exhibit movable cultural property … such as museums, large libraries, archive depositories, as well as shelters intended to protect cultural property in the event of armed conflict” [art. 1.b] and, finally, protective signage is also provided for the transport instruments of cultural property whose entity or protection is in danger [arts. 12 and 13].
The entity of the protected property and the danger that may surround it indicates what degree of protection it will receive and this decision directly affects which emblem will be placed as a warning or how many.
According to the 1954 Convention, the emblem will be used “isolated or repeated three times in a triangle formation [a shield at the bottom], according to the circumstances” [art. 16]; there are, therefore, two possibilities for the Convention: general protection - identification with an emblem - or special protection - marking with three emblems - [art. 17]. Then, in the 1999 Protocol, a third degree of support and its consequent identification was added: reinforced protection, which is distinguished from the previous ones by the fact that the emblem of the blue shield is framed by an outer red band, and which is assigned only to the identification of cultural goods "of the greatest importance for humanity" [5].
Furthermore, the Parties - the States that signed it - undertook to prepare in times of peace for the safeguarding of movable and immovable property declared as cultural heritage of each of them, to adopt all internal and international measures, coordinated and appropriate, to avoid "the foreseeable effects of an armed conflict" [art. 3] and to respect the recognized cultural property by refraining from using it as a destination for destruction or deterioration in the event of armed conflict, and refraining from any act of hostility towards such property. The preparation of national inventories of those properties that are considered important and the designation of public agents specialized in this subject to safeguard them are also obligations assumed.
The statue of Buddha in the valley of Bamiyān [Afghanistan], carved in sandstone. There were two of them, one larger than the other. Both were destroyed by the Taliban Islamic regime. Photographs: Courtesy of Wikipedia, authorship of Fars Media Corporation and Didier Vanden Berghe, respectively.
In order to act in an armed conflict, States have committed themselves to "prohibit, prevent and put an end, if necessary, to any act of theft, pillage, concealment or appropriation of cultural property, in whatever form it may be practised, as well as all acts of vandalism" on the protected property [art. 4] and, among other things, to prohibit and prevent, with respect to the occupied territory, any export or other type of illegal movement or transfer of ownership of cultural property found in the territory under fire or occupied.
In the Argentine Republic, the body responsible for carrying out the actions provided for in the 1954 Convention is the Ministry of Defence [6].
5. In short, focusing on one of the various aspects considered in the 1954 Convention, the UNESCO blue shield is a mark of consideration that is placed, for strict reasons, on a property - movable or immovable - or in a significant area, which generates the international obligation to respect and safeguard it at all times, in times of peace as well as in times of war or armed conflict.
This commitment emphatically includes the obligation of States to care for the property during periods of peace and during conflicts or the development of hostilities inherent to it, not to include any of the things catalogued, registered and marked on any list of military or strategic objectives. This must be so because "Works of art are one of the elements of the intellectual life of a people or a country, and war, which is nothing more than a passing torment, must as far as possible respect the eternal rights of nations" [7].
To complete the picture, it can be said that the permanent care of these assets is also imposed by other Conventions or internal laws of States.
The blue shield of UNESCO indicates the joint existence of a distinction, due to the characteristics of the property, and a protection, due to the notice it displays.
January 2025.
* Special for Hilario. Arts Letters Trades
Notes:
1] I take this structure for presenting the idea from the interventions of the architect Gabriela Santibáñez - President of ICOMOS Argentina - during the Meeting of UNESCO World Heritage Site Managers, in which we both participated in Samaipata, Bolivia, in October 2024. SEE
2] Menéndez Montero, V. (2023). Between myth and legality: the crime of destruction of cultural heritage in international criminal law. ACDI - Colombian Yearbook of International Law, 16(16), 1–32. SEE
3] All available a see. The Argentine Republic has been part of this system since 1988 (laws 23,618, 25,478 and 26,155), evidencing a certain initial “disinterest” in the matter, as explained by Ariel W. González in his article Argentina and the scheme for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict: a singular challenge, in “International humanitarian law and issues in related areas”, Lessons and Essays No. 78, Gabriel Pablo Valladares (compiler), Lexis Nexis Abeledo Perrot, Buenos Aires, 2003, pp. 165 to 184).
4] Toman, J. (2004). Protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict. World Heritage Collection. UNESCO Edition. Pp. 23-38.
5] UNESCO (2021). Identification of Cultural Assets. Standards and practices. International Blue Shield. Pp. 13.
6] It is carried out through the Cultural Management Coordination dependent on the General Directorate of Institutional Relations. SEE
7] Expression by Johann Bluntschli - a specialist in international law of the 19th century - cited by J. Toman, in the aforementioned work, p. 172.