On Mon, 14 Apr 2003, Sophia Labadi wrote:

++++ [CLIP] ++++

> ICOM-CC said:
> 'ICOM-CC urges the so-called Coalition Forces to act according to The Hague
> Convention'.
>
> This is just a rhetorical question:
> Neither the USA nor the UK have ratified the 1954 Hague Convention. Why then
> would they act according to it?
>
> Sophia.
>
==================================

Sophia:

Not a rhetorical question at all, in fact.

It is true that neither country has ratified either the 1954 Hague
Convention, nor the First Protocol (which has the effect of making illegal
almost all actual or purported "transfers of ownership" of cultural
property in war zones.)

However:

1.  Iraq is a party to both, so the Convention applies to the territory,
(the "lex situs" rule under both international and national law) and
arguably therefore to everyone within the territory and all actions by
them regardless of their nationality,

2.  The United States Defense and State Departments jointly formally
recommended in about 1996 that the President should seek to ratify the
Hague Convention (though not the First Protocol - presumably due to
objections from the art and antiquities trade).  The Convention was duly
sent to the senate for ratification in 1998, but successive Foreign
Relations Committee Chairmen (of both Parties0 have failed to even table
the proposal for debate.

3.  At the 1999 Diplomatic Conference which agreed to update the Hague
Convention through a Second Protocol the United Kingdom also stated that
it now supported Ratification of the Convention (though not the Protocol)
and subject to Ministerial;l approval hoped to Ratify alongside the USA.

4.  The publicly stated policy of both The USA and the UK is to comply
with the principles of the Hague Convention even though neither country is
yet formally a party to it.

To me, the puzzle is why has there been such apparent chaos, looting and
destruction in West Baghdad, with the military authorities arguing that
nothing could be done about this immediately.  In total contrast,
following standard US military principles, the US Marine Corps which are
in charge in East Baghdad seems to have moved immediately to assert and
maintain law and order, so looting, arson etc. has been kept under
control.  (For example, though little publicised by the international
press, who are largely holed up in hotels in the Business and
Government Quarter in West Baghdad, the local medical chief this
afternoon reported in a TV interview that all 12 hospitals east of the
River  Tigris were immediately guarded and continue to function, with
little or no looting.)

Unfortunately the national museum was on the wrong side of the river,
where there seems to have been quite a different interpretation of United
States and International Military and Humanitarian Law from that applied
by the commanders of the Marines in East Baghdad.



Patrick Boylan

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