Heritage Conflict and the Council: The UNSC, UNESCO, and the View from Iraq and Syria

Abstract

Cultural heritage preservation and protection are increasingly tethered to an international security agenda constituted across multilateral agencies. UNESCO and other organizations have securitized heritage, engaging in military training and peacekeeping, international law and prosecution, and cultural property protection. Following the events in Iraq and Syria, UN Security Council resolutions have instantiated norms of heritage violence, risk, and threat, while the Global War on Terror also interpolated looting, trafficking, and terror financing into a heritage-protection agenda. We compare these developments with our large-scale public opinion survey of Mosul and Aleppo residents’ experiences of heritage violence and the implications for security and reconstruction. While our results display potential overlaps with UNSC concerns, we suggest that site destruction and broader security concerns are understood differently on the ground, shaped by political and economic factors. We argue for a more humanitarian focus if any relationship between heritage, security, and, indeed, peacebuilding is to be forged.