Showing papers on "Looting published in 1987"

The applicability of human rights law during military occupations

Abstract: In the forty years since the Second World War there have been many situations which have been widely viewed as military occupations?that is, where the armed forces of a country are in control of inhabited territory beyond the recognized boundaries of their own state. Hungary in 1956, the Israeli-occupied territories since 1967, Namibia since 1968, northern Cyprus since 1974, Western Sahara since 1975 and Kampuchea since 1978 have been among the territories which have been designated as 'occupied' in UN General Assembly resolutions.1 States and their armed forces have long had an interest in rules of restraint so far as the conduct of military occupations is concerned. This is for several reasons. Military occupation is by definition a provisional status, so it makes sense to inhibit any permanent drastic changes in the political or economic order. Military occupations involve close contact between soldiers of one nationality and civilians of another, so guidelines for restraint are needed every bit as much as they are in the analogous situation of prisoners of war. Military occupations in war are sometimes reciprocal, with each state holding some of the other's territory, a situation which can give an additional incentive for following a modicum of mutually accepted rules. Finally, military occupations tend to throw up opportunities for looting and indiscipline on the part of the invading forces, so there are military disciplinary reasons for having a firm set of guidelines as to conduct. Traditionally, the main body of international law applicable in military occupations was that part of the laws of war which dealt with occupations: most particularly Section III of both the 1907 Hague Regulations and the 1949 Geneva Convention IV. However, these parts of the laws of war have not always been viewed by all concerned as applicable to the occupations that have taken place in the past 40 years. The Allied occupations of Germany and Japan after the Second World War were claimed to be of such a special character that the traditional rules, with their prohibitions on making fundamental changes in the political order, did not apply. In more recent cases, the opprobrious designation of 'occupation' has usually been contested. Even when it has been more or less accepted by the occupying power, as has been the case with Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, some grounds for rejecting the formal de jure applicability of the laws of war rules have been advanced by their experts and officials. While a good argument can be made that the laws of war rules should apply irrespective of whether the term 'occupation' is accepted and irrespective of legal niceties to do with the exact status of the territory, this is not the only way of addressing the issue of rules of restraint in contemporary occupations. Increasingly in the past 20 years, another body of international law has often been viewed as relevant in one way or another to military occupations: human rights law. Sometimes

Between Two Earthquakes: The Management of Cultural Property in Seismic Zones

Abstract: Earthquakes are different in degree from most other disasters in their capacity to kill almost instantaneously due to lack of warning and in their extensive damage to cultural property often augmented by fire, looting and water damage. Administrators, by taking steps for disaster preparedness can reduce the damage that occurs in an earthquake and this means saving lives. By rapid decissions after an earthquake they can save historic buildings from the ravages of the weather which can more than treble the initial damage.