The College of Law at the University of Baghdad discussed a master’s thesis in the field of international law by the student (Noor Abdulameer Abid), entitled “Protecting Cultural Properties from Terrorist Acts and their Punishment: Iraq as a Model”, on Thursday, October 12, 2023, in the conference hall of the college.
The thesis aims to shed light on the most important legal mechanisms for protecting cultural properties under international and regional agreements, and to highlight the international efforts dedicated to protecting cultural heritage, as well as highlighting violations against cultural properties worldwide in general and in Iraq in particular.
The thesis included three chapters. The first chapter discussed the conceptual framework of cultural properties and the phenomenon of terrorism, while the second chapter addressed the violations of the terrorist gangs of ISIS against Iraqi cultural properties and the basis for criminalization. The third chapter discussed individual criminal responsibility for the violations of the terrorist gangs of ISIS against Iraqi cultural properties.
The thesis concluded with several recommendations, the most important of which is the utmost importance for states to join and ratify the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its Additional Protocols. It also emphasized the necessity of considering terrorist acts against cultural properties as war crimes by imposing effective compliance with the rules of international humanitarian law.