Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage: What Role for UN Peacekeeping Operations?

In 2014, in the wake of the wilful destruction of cultural and historic sites by armed extremist groups in Northern Mali, for the first time the UN Security Council (UNSC) included the protection of cultural heritage in the mandate of a UN peacekeeping operation (PKO): the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). Some years later, by Res. 2347 (2017), the UNSC affirmed that the mandate of any UN PKO may extend to assistance to host States ‘in the protection of the cultural heritage from destruction, illicit excavation, looting and smuggling in the context of armed conflicts’ (para 19). The actions undertaken by MINUSMA to implement its cultural mandate led to valuable results. Nevertheless, this evolution in the tasks of UN PKOs may raise concerns. In the past, PKOs have proven to be a highly adaptable instrument for the maintenance of international peace and security. However, as the High-level Independent Panel on UN Peace Operations stressed in 2015, the recent changes in the nature and scope of conflicts and the exponential increase of challenges that peacekeepers face on the ground clearly show a ‘widening gap between what is being asked of United Nations peace operations today and what they are able to deliver’. The present chapter intends to explore the implications of the cultural mandate of MINUSMA, at the legal and operative level, and the UN practice which has developed in subsequent years. In particular, the attention is focused, first, on the legitimacy of a “cultural” mandate to UN PKOs and, second, on the implications of this mandate at an operative level. Some concluding remarks follow, taking into account the lessons drawn from the ground.