Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [HL]

Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to welcome and support the Bill to ratify the 1954 Hague convention and its two protocols, for which the All-Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group has long argued. One may well ask, as the noble Lord, Lord Foster, just did, why it took so long. Successive Governments have been surprisingly slow to ratify the convention, so I would like to express thanks to the Secretary of State for ensuring that it is included in this year’s parliamentary programme. I do so on behalf of the All-Party Archaeology Group and the recently formed All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Protection of Cultural Heritage.

It is particularly welcome to see the United Kingdom ratify the more recent second protocol—which, as the Minister remarked, many of our principal allies have not yet managed to do—with its significant sanction of up to 30 years’ imprisonment for breaches of the protocol. My understanding is that our Armed Forces already, in effect, observe all the provisions of the convention and its protocols and have in place measures to give protection, where possible, to sites and monuments, for instance in Iraq, implemented by the new cultural property protection unit.

Your Lordships’ House has previously expressed concern at the looting last year of the Mosul museum, and the fanatical vandalism by ISIS at the Nergal gate at Nineveh and the destruction of the Temple of Baalshamin at Palmyra. No doubt these outrages, and those at Hatra, have encouraged the introduction of the Bill, but is it not an irony that these episodes, and the looting that has accompanied them, do not fall within the scope of the convention or the Bill? I was surprised that the Minister did not refer to that circumstance in her speech. Can she confirm that damage or looting by the Taliban in Afghanistan, or by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, are not covered by the Bill on the grounds that the Taliban and ISIS are not occupying states? Will she confirm that in international law occupied territory results only when one state occupies the territory of another, and that the Taliban and ISIS, whatever their aspirations, are not recognised as states?

Fortunately, dealing in looted antiquities is already covered by the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003, so I hope that the Government will be vigilant and ready to use that legislation when there is the suspicion of illicit antiquities from war zones entering the UK. The recent Security Council resolution to which the Minister referred, relating to cultural property looted in the course of the recent conflict in Syria, is also in place. When enacted, the Bill will apply to occupied territories such as the West Bank, North Cyprus and indeed Crimea, but perhaps not where it is needed most—in Syria, Iraq and Nigeria.

Irina Bokova, the director-general of UNESCO, has stated:

“The deliberate destruction of heritage is a war crime”.

It is clear that traditional shrines and images are being deliberately destroyed by Boko Haram in Nigeria. Does the Minister see a way for this or other legislation to view the destruction of heritage as a war crime and as subject to the application of international law? I quote from the International Business Times of 12 March this year:

“Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court in the Hague made history by initiating proceeding in the first case of cultural destruction as a war crime. It’s an issue that one UN representative wants to see prosecuted more as an increasing number of world heritage sites are first over-run and then destroyed by Islamist fighters. On 1 March, a pre-trial procedure was opened by the ICC in the case against Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi who was charged with ordering and participating in alleged cultural destruction in Timbuktu, Mali. Islamist militants are accused of being behind attacks on 10 religious and historic monuments in the Unesco World Heritage city of Timbuktu in Mali”.

Our role with this Bill is to ratify the existing convention and its protocols but I wonder if the Minister could comment also on the concept of cultural destruction as a war crime, since it is disappointing that the recent outrages in Mosul, Nineveh, Hatra and Palmyra are apparently not covered by the provisions of the Bill. I feel that many Members of your Lordships’ House are uneasy at seeing such deliberate destruction escaping the sanctions of international law, and wonder whether we should not be doing more. I fully support the Bill but perhaps some additional subsequent measures would be in order.