SOAS Research Online

Abstract

In the last two decades, UNESCO has come under increasing fire for its failure to prevent high-profile episodes of intentional destruction of heritage, such as the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas and the demolition of Palmyra. In many ways, these critiques were unfair given that UNESCO was designed to be a standard-setting organisation with no interventionist powers. However, this changed in 2003, when the looting of the Baghdad Museum presented UNESCO with an opportunity to steer heritage responses into the statist realm of collective security, facilitating its quest to strengthen its own regulatory powers. The 2003 looting triggered a two-decades-long policy of expansion that is now beginning to transform international cultural heritage law in a fundamental way. The tangible fruits of this concerted effort can be seen, for instance, in the 2022 UNESCO cultural peacekeeping taskforce that confers UNESCO with the power to unilaterally authorise military interventions abroad, endowing it with the powers of the UN Security Council. This chapter historicises the taskforce and argues that it is the capstone of a well-orchestrated campaign both by UNESCO and key member states. It traces how such an expansionist agenda emerged in cultural heritage law and how these narrative shifts were triggered by political moments such as the Iraq war. The chapter shows that – far from a neutral endeavour – this project has been driven by a select group of heritage experts (military and academic) sponsored by key member-States and UNESCO itself, all eager to solidify their diplomatic capital via the proxy of heritage.