CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VI (1) Contemporary-Eurasia-VI-1-engl | Page 75

CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VI (1)
Taliban must show that its conduct is not inconsistent with any
applicable international obligations to which Afghanistan, like any
other country, is subject 22 .
There are at least three categories of international obligations,
which Afghanistan must respect in this regard. They relate to (a)
international humanitarian law applicable in international armed
conflicts (the Afghan situation has not been an `internal' armed
conflict, pure and simple, as it has had foreign participants); (b)
obligations specifically relating to protection of cultural property; and
(c) obligations emanating from international human rights law 23 .
International humanitarian law, perhaps a forerunner of the
contemporary human rights law, has always sought to ‘humanise’
warfare by endeavouring to strike a balance between the principles of
humanity and the requirements of military necessity, although the
balancing act has often been left to the commander in the field to
implement 24 . Article 27 of the Hague Regulations on the Laws and
Customs of War, 1907 (following a similar provision in their 1899
version), clearly obligates a party to an armed conflict to take “all
necessary steps... to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to
religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments...
provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes.” It
is this time-honoured provision that paved the way for the eventual
adoption, at the initiative of UNESCO, of the Hague Convention for
the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, in
1954. All that the 1954 convention does is to elaborate the 1899-1907
Hague principle of protection of cultural property. Thus, the principle
of protection of cultural property is deeply embedded in international
humanitarian law, regardless of whether a state is a party to the 1954
treaty. The Taliban cannot escape a customary law obligation by
saying that Afghanistan is not a party to the 1954 treaty. Afghanistan’s
Mani V.S., “Bamiyan Buddha and International Law”, The Hindu, 6 th March,
2001.
23
Ibid.
24
Ibid.
22
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