Congratulations ,dear Patrick!
It is a great step forward and I am happy that ICOM ,thanks to your
efforts, had such a leader role.
I look forward to seeing you soon
Elisabeth




At 23:48 30/03/99 +0100, you wrote:
>BRIEFING FROM PATRICK BOYLAN, HEAD OF NON-GOVERNMENTAL DELEGATION -
>INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE BLUE SHIELD (ICBS)
>
>N.B. The ICBS is the standing emergency coordination and response
>committee of the four principal UNESCO-associated non-governmental
professional
>bodies for the "cultural property" area, i.e. the International Council
>on Archives (ICA), International Federation of Library Associations and
>Institutions (IFLA), International Council of Museums (ICOM), and
>International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).
>
>-----------------------------------
>
>After two gruelling weeks, 15 - 26 March 1999, during which
>things often looked very bleak because of deep-seated
>differences between States, a new 2nd Protocol to the 1954
>Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in
>the Event of Armed Conflict was adopted by unanimous
>consensus on the evening of Friday 26 March in The Hague.  So
>far as I could see the Heads of all 84 national Delegations
>taking part signed the "Final Act" of the Diplomatic
>Conference - though this does not commit and State to sign
>and ratify the new treaty itself: this will depend on often
>prolonged consideration and major new primary legislation at
>the national level in each case.
>
>The new Protocol represents much the greatest advance in
>international cultural protection measure for decades -
>certainly since the 1972 World Heritage Convention, and
>probably since the original 1954 Hague Convention. It is also
>the most substantial development in the general field of
>International Humanitarian Law since the Geneva Convention
>Additional Protocols of 1977.  Both the World Heritage
>Convention and the 1977 Additional Protocols offered
>significant precedents for many of the innovations in the
>1999 2nd Protocol just adopted, coupled with the long, and
>sad, experience of the failure of the original 1954
>Convention to prevent great losses of important cultural
>property over the past 45 years, especially in the sort of
>"dirty" armed conflicts such as civil wars that have been a
>constant feature of the post-war world.
>
>For those who are familiar with the 1998 Vienna Draft and the
>UNESCO Working Draft which the March 1999 Diplomatic
>Conference took as its starting point, (and indeed my
>original UNESCO report of 1993 which the Dutch Education and
>Cultural Heritage Secretary of State generously referred to in
>his opening address), on virtually every key area
>except one the final version of the new 2nd Protocol has
>accepted the basic arguments for change and improvement
>(though the final language may look quite different in places
>- not least through the careful attempt to use established
>"Geneva" wording wherever possible).
>
>In summary, the provisions of Hague 1954 in respect of
>"protection" in general have been greatly clarified and
>amplified, in the new Chapter 2.  This offers much clearer
>explanations of, for example, the very limited cases in which
>"imperative military necessity" can be claimed in order to
>allow an attack on cultural property - in effect
>substantially reducing the possible use of this, (a
>long-standing problem dating back to the original 1899 and
>1907 Hague Laws of War).  The obligations of States in
>relation to peacetime preparation and training have been
>expanded. The Chapter also clarifies (and limits very
>considerably) what an occupying power may do in relation to
>cultural property within occupied territories, placing very
>narrow limits on archaeological excavations and the
>alteration or change of use of cultural property, and
>requiring the occupying power to prohibit and prevent all
>illicit export, removal or change of ownership of cultural
>property.
>
>The new Chapter 3 creates a new category of "Exceptional
>Protection" (Protection Renforce in French) for the most
>important sites, monuments and institutions.
>
>This will be an international designation publicised
>in advance (rather along the lines of the World
>Heritage List).  The detailed provisions restrict even
>further than the new Chapter 2 provisions the 1954
>"Imperative Military Necessity" exemption: even in the case
>of gross misuse by the enemy, it will be lawful to attack or
>retaliate only if the cultural property is currently being
>actually used in direct support of the fighting etc., and
>even then there must be no reasonable alternative and any
>response must be strictly proportionate and limited.
>
>One of the two areas in which there is a very major advance
>in international humanitarian law and international criminal
>law is the new Chapter 4.  This establishes a whole range of
>new, explicit, crimes in relation to breaches of cultural
>protection and respect contrary to either the original 1954
>Convention, the new 2nd Protocol, or the cultural protection
>provisions of the 1977 Additional Geneva Protocols.  States
>Parties will have to legislate for these and in normal cases
>will be expected to prosecute such crimes in their normal
>civilian or military courts.  However, there is also
>provision for universal international jurisdiction - giving
>the possibility of criminal prosecution anywhere else in the
>world, at least within a State Party to the 2nd Protocol, and
>the most serious new crimes will be extraditable.
>
>Chapter 5 deals with non-international conflicts, and aims to
>clarify and strengthen considerably the 1954 provisions
>(which above all others have never worked).
>
>The other major advance and significant innovation is Chapter
>6, which establishes for the first time institutional
>arrangements in respect of the application of the 1954
>Convention.  There will be two-yearly meetings of the States
>Parties (compared with a 22 year gap between the 1973 and
>1995 meetings!), and the States will elect a 12 member
>"Committee for the protection of cultural property in the
>event of armed conflict" which will meet at least once a
>year, and more frequently in cases of urgency.  The Committee
>will have a duty to monitor and promote generally, and
>consider applications for both "Exceptional Protection" and
>financial assistance from a (voluntary contributions) Fund to
>be established under the Protocol. The International
>Committee of the Blue Shield (by name) and its constituent
>"eminent professional organizations" (with ICCROM and the
>International Committee of the Red Cross) will have important
>standing advisory roles in relation to the Committee,
>meetings of States Parties and will be consulted on proposals
>for e.g. "Exception Protection" designation.
>
>Chapter 7 strengthens the 1954 provision in relation to
>information, training etc. about the Convention, Protocols
>and general principles of cultural protection. There is now a
>call for States to raise awareness among the general public
>and within the education system (non-binding because of the
>significant number of States where the central government
>does not control or influence directly the school curriculum
>- though an important recognition of the importance and role
>of "civil society" nevertheless).
>
>The one thing that we "lost" was the proposal to give a right
>of recognition and protection to Blue Shield representatives
>and professionals involved in cultural protection.  This was
>strongly opposed as going too far by a wide range of
>delegations, who unfortunately raised their objections very
>late on Friday, when there was just not enough time to
>adjourn to try to find a more restricted and acceptable form
>of words that that proposed by UNESCO (perhaps drawing on the
>Geneva Protocols wording again).
>
>This last failure was disappointing, but having reflected on
>the Diplomatic Conference as a whole for 48 hours I feel that
>this is a relatively minor setback.  (Even one of the major
>Delegations mandated in advance to oppose the UNESCO  proposal
>on this point, said that  in the short debate I won the argument.
>I think that had there been a few more hours available, it would
>have been possible to arrive at an acceptable compromise, based
>drawing up a parallel provision to the well-established Geneva
>Conventions provisions in respect of civilian humanitarian aid etc.
>organisations.  Rather than wait 45 years for the next Diplomatic
>Conference and updating, there may be ways of  getting at least
>part way there if circumstances arise, as  both the new Committee
>and the Director-General of UNESCO  will have quite wide powers at
>the operational level.
>
>Against this, the formal recognition of the International
>Committee of the Blue Shield in several places in the new 2nd
>Protocol, especially within the new institutional structure,
>represented a really remarkable change of minds during the
>course of the two weeks.  During their opening statements
>communicating their respective governments' overall reaction
>to the UNESCO draft, (which took up most of the first and
>second days of the Conference), at least 20 of the 84
>participating States spoke strongly against any mention of
>non-governmental organisations in the new treaty.  Indeed,
>many had at the beginning singled out as "especially objectionable" the
>proposal  in the draft to give the ICBS an official status under the
>new Protocol, ("contrary to international law" etc. etc.,
>"We'll be asked to include the International Federation of
>Boy Scouts next!").
>
>In addition, each of the four constituent bodies of the ICBS
>including ICOM of course were named in full in the formal "Final Act"
>of the  Diplomatic Conference.  Even more remarkably bearing in mind
>the earlier hostility among many delegations, I was invited
>to sign the Final Act as Head of the International Committee
>of the Blue Shield delegation.  I didn't realise the
>significance of this until one of the UK Foreign Office
>international law experts told me that this was the first
>time in modern diplomatic law that an NGO observer delegation
>had been allowed to sign the Final Act of such a Diplomatic
>Conference!
>
>The text was adopted in French and English: UNESCO is now
>preparing urgently official translations in the other four UN
>languages (Arabic, Chinese, Spanish and Russian) in time for
>the formal signing ceremony of the new Protocol itself.
>
>This is going to be in The Hague on Monday 17 May, the first
>day of the three days of celebrations to mark the 100th
>anniversary of the first Hague Peace Conference and Convention,
>concluded in May 1899.
>
>
>Patrick Boylan
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