Round table, devoted to the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict

Assembly Hall
Time: 9:30-17:15
Organizer: Department of International relations of Ministry of Culture and Tourism

On the 27th of January in the Assembly Hall of Museum Center Geneva/Baku (ICRC) - Azerbaijan's Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are holding a round table today on the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict. Over 50 participants, including noted experts in international law from various government ministries and academic institutions, are attending the event in Baku.
Abulfas Garayev, Azerbaijan's minister of culture and tourism, and Antoon Vandenhove, the ICRC's head of delegation in the country, are among those addressing the participants.
"The rules governing the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict are part and parcel of international humanitarian law," said Pascale Meige Wagner, the ICRC's head of operations for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. "This meeting offers us the opportunity to examine together how respect for those rules can be enhanced."
The round table enables participants to share their ideas on, and experience they have already acquired, implementing the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two Protocols. The treaties provide that cultural property must not be subject to any act of hostility or used for purposes that are likely to expose it to destruction or damage in the event of armed conflict.
Azerbaijan became party to the 1954 Hague Convention and its First Protocol in 1993; it adhered to the Second Protocol in 2000.
As the promoter and guardian of international humanitarian law, the ICRC has long supported the authorities in implementing or developing the rules of international humanitarian law, including those governing the protection of cultural property.