The Institutionalisation of Heritage Protection and the (de)Legitimisation of War

This article analyses the process leading to the institutionalization of the link between cultural heritage and warfare within the UNESCO system, culminating in the Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict in 1954. I approach UNESCO through its aspirations to alter the procedures of international order, and address the normative formulation of the organization’s heritage protection agenda as an emerging principle tangled up with the institutions of international law and the regulation of warfare. The analysis of how and why the issue of heritage protection and its ties with armed conflict was first put on UNESCO’s agenda reveals a re-evaluation of the position of war within UNESCO, transforming from the elimination and denial of war to the regulation of war. The conceptual contradiction with the organization’s underlying principles later embedded in the Hague Convention reflects a paradigm shift within the UNESCO system, suggesting that the perceived Cold War -induced need to protect cultural heritage during times of war became the wedge that pushed war into the UNESCO context, leading to a reluctant legitimization of war as a basic institution.