The Blue Shield's mission statement is in their statutes. It is a network of committees of dedicated individuals across the world that is “committed to the protection of the world's cultural property, and is concerned with the protection of cultural and natural heritage, tangible and intangible, in the event of armed conflict, natural- or human-made disaster.”
Following the Second World War, which saw extensive damage and widespread theft of cultural heritage throughout Europe and Asia, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was founded in 1946 with the official aim of promoting peace, development, and dialogue through cultural exchange and preservation. At the behest of the Netherlands,[7] UNESCO helped draft and sponsor the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, the first widely ratified international treaty that focused exclusively on the protection of cultural property in armed conflict; it entered into force on 7 August 1956, obligating states parties to protect cultural property in both peacetime and war, including those located in combatant nations.
The International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS) was established in 1996 by the four major non-governmental heritage organisations,[8] which represent professionals active in the fields of archives, libraries, monuments and sites, and museums:
to further the protection of heritage in conflict. Article 27.3 of the 1954 Hague Convention Second Protocol (1999)[9] explicitly mentions the International Committee of the Blue Shield as an advisory body to the Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.[10] The four organisations worked together to prepare for, and respond to, emergency situations that could affect cultural heritage. They were joined in 2005 by the CCAAA (Co-ordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations), who later left in 2012. The 'founding four' supplied a Secretariat for the organisation which rotated once every three years between them. Julien Anfruns was President of the International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS) between 2009 and 2013.
By 2000, national committees had begun to form to protect cultural heritage in their countries.[11] In 2006, a conference Towards Solid Organisation: Infrastructure and Awareness was held at the Hague in the Netherlands, attended by the national committees and the ICBS.[12] At this event, the Hague Accord was written, establishing the Association of National Committees of the Blue Shield (ANCBS) to coordinate the work of the national committees.[11] The ANCBS came into formal existence in 2008:[13]Karl von Habsburg was appointed as the first President. During this time, he undertook a number of fact finding missions[14] to countries in conflict to learn more about the damage to their cultural heritage.
While in many wars the freedom of movement of the United Nations personnel is significantly restricted due to security concerns, Blue Shield is considered to be particularly suitable due to its structure enabling it to act flexibly and autonomously in particularly dangerous armed conflicts. Joris Kila, art historian for Blue Shield and the "Competence Center for Cultural Heritage" at the University of Vienna, sums it up as follows: "Unesco and other institutions consider it too dangerous to inspect the places in Libya themselves, whether they are damaged or not. So Karl von Habsburg and I decided that we had to do it ourselves. We were in Ras-Almergib, a site right next to Leptis Magna, where a radar and air defense station of the Gaddafi troops was destroyed, less than 15 meters away from a Roman fort that remained intact. The ancient site was on our list."[15]
ANCBS Fact Finding Mission Egypt, 2011. Karl von Habsburg is on the right
Blue Shield First Assessment Mission to Libya, September 28 to 30, 2011. Karl von Habsburg is on the left, and Hafed Walda on the right.
Presentation by the Austrian Committee of the Blue Shield at the General Assembly September 2017 in the Rathaus, Vienna.
In terms of cultural property protection, there is therefore intensive cooperation between Blue Shield, the United Nations and UNESCO.[16][17][18] The cooperation between UNESCO and Blue Shield International is to be further strengthened, according to the then Director General of UNESCO Irina Bokova. "UNESCO and Blue Shield International share a common goal" and "We seek to protect cultural property, and, by extension, humanity's cultural legacy", said Bokova in October 2017 at a conference of Blue Shield International.[19]
In 2016, ICBS and ANCBS amalgamated to become simply “The Blue Shield”, amending the ANCBS statutes to reflect these changes, and registering the Blue Shield as an Association in the Netherlands.[20] These statutes were formally approved by the Blue Shield General Assembly (2017) in Vienna.[21]
Language preservation is also protection of cultural heritage, as former President Habsburg stated. "Today, on average, we lose one language in the world every six weeks. There are approximately 6800 languages. But four per cent of the population speaks 96 per cent of the languages, and 96 per cent of the population speaks four per cent of the languages. These four per cent are spoken by large language groups and are therefore not at risk. But 96 per cent of the languages we know are more or less at risk. You have to treat them like extinct species."[22]
A special concern of Blue Shield International is the protection of cultural heritage during military peace operations. 40 lecturers and participants from America, Denmark, Lebanon, Italy, Croatia, Slovakia and Austria had the opportunity at the "Blue Helmet Forum 2019" to deal with the topic. Experiences of the US Army, operational experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and the establishment of a separate Italian cultural property unit were also discussed. Karl von Habsburg spoke about the need to protect cultural property not only during and after conflicts, but also outside of armed conflicts.[23]
In 2020, Blue Shield International and the UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon, in collaboration with the Lebanese armed forces, completed a month-long project to secure and protect the cultural property damaged after the August 4th explosions in Beirut.[24][25]
Composition
The Blue Shield is a protective symbol to be used in armed conflict to identify cultural property to be protected in the event of armed conflict and those responsible for protecting it: its use is restricted under international law. The 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict describes the logo and lays down conditions for its use.The Blue Shield mounted on the outside of a building in Austria
The Blue Shield is formed from national committees around the world, coordinated by an International Board - Blue Shield International (BSI). BSI maintains a list of national committees on their website.[26]
The BSI Board is formed from nine people. There are four nominated representatives from ICA, ICOM, ICOMOS, and IFLA. The General Assembly also votes in four members who have stood for election from national committees. A new board is appointed every three years at the General Assembly. Karl von Habsburg was appointed as the first President of the Blue Shield at the 2017 General Assembly; and Peter Stone was appointed as the vice-president. In 2020, Habsburg stepped down, having Chaired the organisation since 2008 (initially as President of ANCBS). He was replaced by Stone at the August 2020 General Assembly.[27]
In support of Peter Stone's work in cultural property protection, Newcastle University funded the first full-time Secretariat for the organisation in 2017, consisting of one full-time staff member - Dr Emma Cunliffe and one part time member - Dr Paul Fox stepped down the end of December 2019, and was replaced by Dr Michael Delacruz.
Mission and areas of activity
Logo of the ANCBS
The Blue Shield is a network of committees of dedicated individuals across the world that is:
committed to the protection of the world's cultural property, and is concerned with the protection of cultural and natural heritage, tangible and intangible, in the event of armed conflict, natural- or human-made disaster.[28]
The key goals of the Blue Shield are laid out in Article 2 of the Blue Shield Statutes 2016.[29] They are to:
protect cultural and natural heritage – tangible and intangible – from the effects of conflict and environmental disaster;
promote the ratification of, respect for, and implementation of, the 1954 Hague Convention and its two Protocols;
raise awareness of the importance of protecting heritage in emergency situations;
promote and provide relevant training (to heritage professionals, the armed forces, other emergency responders, and those involved in preventing the illicit trafficking of looted objects);
promote community engagement with and participation in protecting cultural property (CP);
encourage co-operation with, and between, other relevant entities involved in emergency situations.
The work of the Blue Shield is underpinned by international law[30] – in particular, the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two Protocols of 1954 and 1999, which are considered to be part of international humanitarian law (IHL). IHL, also known as the Law of War or Law of Armed Conflict, is a set of rules which seek, for humanitarian reasons, to limit the effects of armed conflict on people and property. This primary context is also informed by a number of other international legal instruments, by the international cultural protection agenda as set by the UN and UNESCO, and by international initiatives regarding environmental disaster such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. Although the 1954 Hague Convention and its two Protocols refer to cultural property, recognising the developments in our understanding of culture across the world, and the different ways it manifests, the Blue Shield deals with the broader concept of cultural heritage.
Blue Shield's mission and goals are delivered through six proactive areas of activity.[31] With respect to cultural property protection (CPP) in the event of armed conflict and natural/human-made disasters, the Blue Shield works in the areas of:
Proactive protection and risk preparedness;
Emergency response;
Stabilisation, post-disaster recovery, and long-term/ongoing support activities;
Legal compliance, policy, and their implementation;
Capacity building activities, and education and training in support of the Blue Shield's Areas of Activity;
Co-ordination – of Blue Shield members and with partner organisations.
The Blue Shield realises these Areas of Activity in the following national and international contexts:
Contributing the development and delivery of plans and actions for proactive planning, emergency response, stabilisation, post-disaster recovery, and long-term/ongoing support activities at the national and international level, coordinating support to affected national committees from the international community as requested.
Promoting and developing understanding of the international laws which underpin the Blue Shield's work
Contributing to the development of policies in relation to national and international cultural protection agendas, and promoting their implementation.
Developing policy for the Blue Shield, and interpreting and implementing it at the national level. BSI recognises that its work must be interpreted in a national context, taking account of national legislation and policy.
Working with partners to support capacity building activities and develop and deliver education and training materials and courses in support of the Blue Shield's Areas of Activity.
Co-ordinating the work of the Blue Shield national committees, and national / international partners. Blue Shield does not work in isolation. International partners include: UNESCO, ICA, ICOM, ICOMOS, IFLA and other international heritage organisations; NATO and other multi-national forces; and other international organisations involved in cultural property protection. National partners include: government departments, national ministries of defence, emergency response units, and other national organisations involved in CPP, such as national committees or branches of ICA, ICOM, ICOMOS, IFLA, and the National Commissions of UNESCO.
The Blue Shield formally adopted the Four Tier Approach[32] to the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict at its 2017 General Assembly, describing the four times when heritage professionals aim to work with armed forces to protect cultural property.
Blue Shield International is committed to providing training in cultural property protection for members of armed forces around the world, and lists NATO amongst its partners.[33] In addition to their work with NATO,[34][35] in 2017-2018, they contributed to training for national armed forces in Georgia,[36][37] peacekeeping forces deployed by Fiji,[38][39] and ran exercises at an international workshop in Austria.[40]
Logo
The Blue Shield logo was adopted in 2018 by the Blue Shield International Board, after the merger of ICBS and ANCBS. It represents the Blue Shield International Board and officially registered national committees of the Blue Shield across the world.
ICBS adopted the emblem of the 1954 Hague Convention that designates cultural property that should be protected, and for identification of those working to protect it – the blue shield. The cultural emblem is a protective symbol used during armed conflicts, and its use is restricted under international law. In order to avoid confusion with the emblem, the ANCBS adopted a new symbol - they took up the emblem of the Convention as a symbol of their protective work, but lightened the royal blue, and set it in a cyan blue circular background. The strapline of ANCBS was "Protecting The World's Cultural Heritage During Emergency Situations".
When ICBS and ANCBS merged in 2016, the decision was taken to re-brand to symbolise the new Blue Shield organisation. In 2018, a new logo was formally adopted by the Blue Shield International Board. The Blue Shield logo is the royal blue shield emblem of the 1954 Hague Convention, set within a mid-blue circle, symbolising both Blue Shield's roots and focus on the Hague Convention and armed conflict, and the wider remit it encompasses today.[41] As part of the rebranding, the Blue Shield changed its strapline to "Protecting Heritage in Crisis".
The Blue Shield logo is used as a visible sign to indicate the Blue Shield International Board and shows the officially registered national committees of the Blue Shield across the world. It should be used to raise the visibility of the name and logo of the Blue Shield organisation by linking its name and organisation to activities of those it works with.[41]
World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection by an international convention administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity".
The International Council on Monuments and Sites is a professional association that works for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places around the world. Now headquartered in Charenton-le-Pont, France, ICOMOS was founded in 1965 in Warsaw as a result of the Venice Charter of 1964 and offers advice to UNESCO on World Heritage Sites.
The Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments or Roerich Pact is an inter-American treaty. The most important idea of the Roerich Pact is the legal recognition that the defense of cultural objects is more important than the use or destruction of that culture for military purposes, and the protection of culture always has precedence over any military necessity.
A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, historical, political, technical or architectural importance. Examples of monuments include statues, (war) memorials, historical buildings, archaeological sites, and cultural assets. If there is a public interest in its preservation, a monument can for example be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Cultural Heritage and Conflict gives the next definition of monument:
Monuments result from social practices of construction or conservation of material artifacts through which the ideology of their promoters is manifested. The concept of the modern monument emerged with the development of capital and the nation-state in the fifteenth century when the ruling classes began to build and conserve what were termed monuments. These practices proliferated significantly in the nineteenth century, creating the ideological frameworks for their conservation as a universal humanist duty. The twentieth century has marked a movement toward some monuments being conceived as cultural heritage in the form of remains to be preserved, and concerning commemorative monuments, there has been a shift toward the abstract counter monument. In both cases, their conflictive nature is explicit in the need for their conservation, given that a fundamental component of state action following the construction or declaration of monuments is litigating vandalism and iconoclasm. However, not all monuments represent the interests of nation-states and the ruling classes; their forms are also employed beyond Western borders and by social movements as part of subversive practices which use monuments as a means of expression, where forms previously exclusive to European elites are used by new social groups or for generating anti-monumental artifacts that directly challenge the state and the ruling classes. In conflicts, therefore, it is not so much the monument which is relevant but rather what happens to the communities that participate in its construction or destruction and their instigation of forms of social interaction.
The International Council of Museums (ICOM) is a non-governmental organisation dedicated to museums, maintaining formal relations with UNESCO and having a consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Founded in 1946, ICOM also partners with entities such as the World Intellectual Property Organization, Interpol, and the World Customs Organization in order to carry out its international public service missions, which include fighting illicit traffic in cultural goods and promoting risk management and emergency preparedness to protect world cultural heritage in the event of natural or man-made disasters. Members of the ICOM get the ICOM membership card, which provides free entry, or entry at a reduced rate, to many museums all over the world.
Karl Habsburg is an Austrian politician and the head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, the former royal house of the defunct Austro-Hungarian thrones. As a citizen of the Republic of Austria, his legal name is Karl Habsburg-Lothringen.
The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict is the first international treaty that focuses exclusively on the protection of cultural property in armed conflict. It was signed at The Hague, Netherlands, on 14 May 1954 and entered into force on 7 August 1956. As of July 2021, it has been ratified by 133 states.
Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by society.
ICBS may mean:
Europa Nostra is a pan-European Federation for Cultural Heritage, representing citizens' organisations that work on safeguarding Europe's cultural and natural heritage. It is the voice of this movement to relevant international bodies, in particular the European Union, the Council of Europe and UNESCO. It has consultative status with UNESCO and is recognised as an NGO partner.
Protective signs are legally protected symbols to be used during an armed conflict to mark persons and objects under the protection of various treaties of international humanitarian law. While their essential meaning can be summarized as "don't shoot" or "don't attack", the exact conditions implied vary depending on the respective sign and the circumstances of its use. The form, shape and color of these signs are defined by the rules of international humanitarian law. Usually, they are easy to draw in order to make even an improvised use as easy as possible, and they were chosen to be as concise, recognizable and visible as possible under all circumstances.
Cultural property, also known as cultural patrimony, comprises the physical items that are part of the cultural heritage of a group or society, as opposed to less tangible cultural expressions. They include such items as cultural landscapes, historic buildings, works of art, archaeological sites, as well as collections of libraries, archives, and museums.
The Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz is a German private initiative founded in 1985 that works for the preservation of cultural heritage in Germany and to promote the idea of cultural heritage management.
The Swiss Agency for the Protection of Cultural Property defines measures to protect cultural property against damage, destruction, theft and loss. For this purpose, a legal basis has been established at the national level and international agreements have been made that oblige Switzerland to respect and support the protection of cultural property not only on its own territory but also on the sovereign territory of other state parties.
Julien Anfruns is a French lawyer and a French business executive. Formerly, he was the Director of Corporate Affairs for Philip Morris, France and a member of the Executive Committee. He also served as a French senior civil servant, and was nominated in September 2013 to serve as a member of the Council of State as a supreme court judge.
The Barbarastollen underground archive is an underground archive intended to preserve Germany’s cultural heritage from man-made or natural disaster. The Barbarastollen is located in a disused mine near Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It holds microfilms with about 1.12 billion images from German archives and museums.
The U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield (USCBS), founded in 2006, is the United States national committee of the Blue Shield. The Blue Shield was formed according to the provisions of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, which specifies a symbol of a blue shield for marking protected cultural property. The Blue Shield, of which USCBS is a member, is an organization of affiliated national committees from nations around the globe.
Markus Hilgert is a German Assyriologist and cultural manager. Currently, he is the Secretary General and CEO of the Cultural Foundation of the German Federal States. From 2014 until 2018, Hilgert served as the director of the Vorderasiatisches Museum at the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin. From 2007 until 2014, Hilgert was a professor of Assyriology at Heidelberg University.
Peter G. Stone, is a British heritage professional and academic, who is the current UNESCO Chair in Cultural Property Protection and Peace at Newcastle University. He was the vice-president of Blue Shield International from 2017 to 2020, and was elected its president at the 2020 General Assembly. He is also a founding member and the chair of the UK Committee of that organisation.
Patrick John Boylan, FGS, FMA, FCMI was an English geologist and museum director who was professor of heritage policy, and a leading international authority on museum policy and management. He first built up his experience of museum work at three English regional museums: in Kingston upon Hull, Exeter and Leicester.
↑ Boylan, Patrick (2001). The Concept of cultural protection in times of armed conflict: from the crusades to the new millennium. In: Neil Brodie and Kathryn Walker Tubb (eds), Illicit Antiquities. The theft of culture and the extinction of archaeology. One World Archaeology. pp.43–108.
↑ Friedrich Schipper: "Bildersturm: Die globalen Normen zum Schutz von Kulturgut greifen nicht" (German - The global norms for the protection of cultural property do not apply), In: Der Standard, 6 March 2015.
↑ Joris Kila in Monument Men der Gegenwart. Schutz vor Bomben und Plünderungen., (German) In: Kölner Stadt Anzeiger, 20 February 2014.
↑ Eric Gibson: "The Destruction of Cultural Heritage Should be a War Crime". The Wall Street Journal, 2 March 2015.
↑ Roger O'Keefe, Camille Péron, Tofig Musayev, Gianluca Ferrari: Protection of Cultural Property. Military Manual. UNESCO, 2016, pp. 73ff.
↑ Sabine von Schorlemer: Kulturgutzerstörung. Die Auslöschung von Kulturerbe in Krisenländern als Herausforderung für die Vereinten Nationen., (German), 2016, S. 785ff.
↑ UNESCO Director-General calls for stronger cooperation for heritage protection at the Blue Shield International General Assembly. UNESCO, 13 September 2017.
↑ Stone, Peter G. (2013). "A four-tier approach to the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict". Antiquity. 87 (335): 166–177. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00048699. S2CID143218182.
George P. Mackenzie (2000). "Working for the Protection of the World's Cultural Heritage: The International Committee of the Blue Shield". In: Journal of the Society of Archivists.24(1), Routledge & The Society of Archivists, pp.5–10, ISSN1465-3907.
Marie-Thérèse Varlamoff (2002). "The Blue Shield Initiative: Joining Efforts to Preserve our Cultural Heritage in Danger". In: LIBER Quarterly: The Journal of European Research Libraries.12(2–3), Utrecht Publishing & Archiving Services, pp.275–282, ISSN1435-5205.
Corine Koch (Übers., Ed.) (2003). A Blue Shield for the Protection of our Endangered Cultural Heritage. International Preservation Issues Number Four. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, Paris, ISBN2-91-274302-8.
Ross Shimmon (2004). "The International Committee of the Blue Shield 1998–2004: An Overview". In: Alexandria: The Journal of National and International Library and Information Issues. 16(3). Ashgate Publishing & the British Library, pp.133–141, ISSN0955-7490.
Patty Gerstenblith, and Nancy C. Wilkie (2017). "The U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield and the Blue Shield Movement", NATO Legal Gazette 38Archived 2 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine , 70-79.
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