Topic: 2025-Protecting Heritage Sites and Cultural Artifacts in Conflict Zones
Country: France
Delegate Name: Addie Woltil
The protection of cultural heritage and individualistic identities between regions and groups is of the utmost importance in a vastly changing global climate where entire cultures can be lost to the testament of time. Especially in areas of high conflict, civilians, although often not the intended target, find themselves in harm’s way by brutal attacks that sacrifice remnants of heritage and even lives. Protecting these remnants of ancestry through documentation, laws, and consequences for the harm of cultural identity is a way that we can quickly move forward toward a world where we can find respect for all cultural identities. France has witnessed countless acts of violence against nonviolent civilian groups that result in pain and suffering and the immeasurable loss of intangible cultural importance. We need to take proactive measures to ensure that now and in all future circumstances, we can protect, upkeep, and salvage the remnants of cultural ancestry and heritage.
France has been a center of trade, diversity, and culture since its early ages, and due to the vast amount of cross-cultural interaction that we facilitate and our role in the global network of trade and communication, we find it important to allow smaller cultural identities thrive under harsh circumstances through preservation and perseverance of individual heritage. France and the United Arab Emirates took the initiative after the Heritage in Danger: Conference of Abu Dhabi in 2016 and created ALIPH, the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage. ALIPH aims to provide both immediate emergency relief and long-term solutions for the destruction of heritage zones and does so through on-the-ground work and connectivity programs and joint cooperation programs with fellow nations and private supporters to work out funding and initiatives to solve the issue.
France proposes the implementation of a system designed to protect and upkeep the history of cultural heritage and artifacts that are in the way of harm, particularly in war zones. This can be achieved through the establishment of an archive of individual cultures globally and consistent upkeep and updating of their history. This way, if they are destroyed in some way or another, a remnant of them can be preserved in world history. France supports the upkeep and advancement of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict as UNESCO, which we were an original signatory on, and the 1999 Second Protocol convention. The update of this to adapt to changing new world developments, specifically in modern warfare and the threat of nuclear warfare, is ideal to support all nations and individual cultural identities within them. France suggests that we create an official group focused on the upkeep, revival, and assurance of individualistic cultural identities and the information and artifacts that are important to these groups, particularly in regions of conflict and areas where this vital history has already been lost. Creating or working with groups that are focused on this issue, such as The Blue Shield International or INTERPOL, can ensure that there are punishments for the perpetrators and recompensation to the civilian groups for the loss of items of oftentimes immeasurable value.
Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention – UNESCO
Making the Convention more operational: 1999 Second Protocol – UNESCO
Blue Shield International Board Activities
Heritage in Danger: Conference of Abu Dhabi – Cultural Relations Platform
International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage Mission – ALIPH
