Cultural Genocide - Destruction of Cultural Sites

Although there is clear international law outlawing the destruction of cultural sites during the time of war (see 2020 Conflict War Crimes), there are limited measures available against governments which destroy cultural heritage in their territory during times of peace.  The 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict seeks to protect cultural property from destruction or theft during armed conflict (both domestic and international) and foreign occupation, and it applies to peacetime international trafficking in cultural property looted during an armed conflict. Meanwhile the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property focuses on private conduct during peacetime, rather than the acts of the state itself. Finally, the 1972 UNESCO Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage established the ‘World Heritage Committee’, an intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of the Cultural and Natural Heritage of Outstanding Universal Value. Each member state submits an inventory of cultural and natural heritage within its borders to the World Heritage Committee. In turn, the World Heritage Committee maintains and publishes a list of these properties in its ‘World Heritage List’, which are afforded special protection.

The combination of these three conventions leaves a potential loophole for states destroying cultural sites on their own territory, which they have not nominated for international recognition. Azerbaijan has repeatedly refused to nominate Armenian cultural heritage for the UNESCO World Heritage List and to grant UNESCO access to Azerbaijan to examine the state of Armenian cultural heritage. There is also clear precedent of intentional destruction of cultural sites by Azerbaijan in at least one former ethnic Armenian area now within the Azerbaijani state.

In Nakhichevan, the Azerbaijani authorities oversaw the total destruction of a total of 28,000 monuments, including 89 medieval churches, 5,840 unique hand-carved khachkars and 22,000 ancient flat tombstones.  This included the ancient Armenian cemetery of Djulfa between 1997-2006, which housed the largest collection of Armenian khachkars anywhere in the world.  Among the erased Armenian heritage sites were the medieval global trade networks launched by Djulfa merchants, the medieval Djulfa cemetery, Surb Hakob and the three adjacent churches of Shorot (founded in the 12th century), and Surb Karapet (Holy Precursor Church) in Abrakunis. The magnitude of the destruction was greater than that seen in Iraq and Syria while in the hands of the Islamic State.

As Azerbaijan banned international fact-finders from visiting Nakhichevan, evidence was taken from satellite imagery as well as eyewitness testimony. In February 2019, the New York-based art journal Hyperallergic published a report describing Azerbaijan’s destruction of Armenian history as “the worst cultural genocide of the 21st century”. Footage taken from Iran’s northern border in December 2005 shows Azerbaijani soldiers demolishing Armenian graves from the 17th century Djulfa cemetery and loading them onto trucks. The footage compelled the European Parliament to investigate the situation but was barred from doing so by Azerbaijan. A journalist from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting visited the area in 2006 and reported that there are no longer any visible traces of the cemetery. UK newspaper The Guardian has claimed that Azerbaijan bans all official international visits to Djulfa or any other Armenian sites proven to have been destroyed, while Azerbaijan denies that Armenians have ever lived in the Nakhchivan region, where Julfa was located.

Although the international law on cultural destruction in peace time is underdeveloped to date, there is a body of resolutions and prosecutions growing that point to its becoming an international crime¹. For example, in order to address the destruction and theft of cultural property in Iraq and Syria, in May 2015 the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted a wide-ranging resolution², which ‘affirms that attacks intentionally directed against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, or other historic monuments, may amount to war crimes’, and ‘stresses the importance of holding accountable’ perpetrators who directly attack cultural property. More recently, in September 2015, the Niger government surrendered Ahmad Al Mahdi Al Faqi (Abu Tourab) to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The accused was a member of Ansar Dine, an Al-Qaeda linked group that controlled northern Mali in 2012, and oversaw actions to vandalize and destroy mosques and mausoleums and also to burn tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts. This prosecution is significant because it is the first case brought before the ICC ‘concerning the destruction of buildings dedicated to religion and historical monuments’ during an armed conflict of a non-international character.