Hostilities cultural property

Termites. Termites are socializing wood predators believed to have descended from the cockroach family. Of all of the wood-destroying insects, termites account for the greatest amount of damage to cultural property. Often securely hidden in the soil beneath a structure or artifact, termites have developed ingenious methods of migration and survival in hostile environments. Four types should be known to the conservator ... 

In addition to preventing the export of cultural property from territory occupied by a Contracting Party, the Protocol requires any Contracting Party to seize cultural property imported into its territory either directly or indirectly from any occupied territory, irrespective of whether the occupier or the State whose territory is under occupation are Contracting Parties. Such seizure should be taken either automatically or at the request of the competent authorities of the occupied territory. Any property seized must be returned to the competent authorities of the territory previously occupied at the close of hostilities. Such property must never be retained as war reparations. 

Part n deals with the case of cultural property coming from the territory of one Contracting Party and deposited in the territory of another Contracting Party for the purpose of protecting the property from the dangers of armed conflict. Such property must be returned by the latter Contracting party to the competent authorities of the territory from which it came at the end of hostilities. Unlike Part I, which applies to property exported in the course of occupation by a State of the territory of another which would constitute an international armed conflict. Part n applies to both international and non-intemational armed conflicts. It would also apply to property sent to another country for safe keeping before the outbreak of hostilities. Property transferred under this provision must be returned from the competent authorities of the territory from where it came at the close of hostilities. 

As regards the first condition, the property must by its function have been made into a military objective. Thus it is the function to which the cultural property is put in the circumstances prevailing at the time, rather than the inherent nature of the property that determines whether it has been made into a military objective. Thus the mere location of cultural property could never turn it into a military objective. Some positive action should be required from the holder of the property before it could become a military objective. The second condition is that there is no feasible alternative available to obtain a similar military advantage to that offered by directing an act of hostility against that military objective. This condition in effect clarifies the requirement of the 1954 Convention that the military necessity has to be imperative , namely, that no other feasible alternative is available. This means that when there is a choice between several military objectives whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralisation, in the circumstances ruling at the time, woirld offer a definite military advantage but one of them is cultural property, the latter must not be attacked. 

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