Inter Arma Silent Musae: Can military necessity gag international cultural heritage law?
Yildiz Technical University - ICOMOS ICORP International Conference Proceedings, Istanbul, Turkey, 15-17 November, 2012 ; This paper aims at identifying the main problems regarding the impact of the exception of military necessity on the framework for the protection of cultural property in armed conflicts. It explains where the idea of military necessity stems from and what different functions it is nowadays thought to fulfil in that context. It also seeks to elucidate the circumstances under which it became a factor relevant to the treaty framework for the protection of cultural property and answers the question whether in the light of the brisk development of conventional and customary protections for cultural heritage, this exception would be inserted again if the travaux préparatoires of the 1954 Hague Convention were taking place these days. Finally, the paper attempts to discern patterns to avoid and the ones to follow in thinking about military necessity in the context of protection of cultural heritage.