![\"cecil-iii-2\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/files\/2016\/11\/CeCIL-III-2-200x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
the larger Canterbury community by having Kent academics present their insights on pressing international affairs. This objective was exquisitely met on Tuesday through Kent Law School\u2019s resident art law and cultural heritage expert Dr. Sophie Vigneron\u2019s delivery of a fascinating lecture entitled \u2018The Destruction of Cultural Heritage: From Byzantine Iconoclasm to Daesh.\u2019 While Daesh (aka ISIS\/Islamic State) has generated worldwide outrage through its destruction of ancient artefacts and archeological sites, Sophie reminds us that such acts of destruction and looting have an immensely deep historical context.<\/p>\n
Here Sophie traces the practice of cultural heritage destruction to the ancient concept of iconoclasm, prevalent in the monotheistic traditions, whereby images depicting God were deemed blasphemous and destroyed out of fear that it was the image that would be worshiped as opposed to God. A prominent example of this iconoclasm began in the Byzantine Empire in 726 CE and lasted until 843 CE. Moreover, while religious in origin, these acts of iconoclasm, and the notion of deliberate humiliation attached to them, took on various secular manifestations ranging from the destruction of\u00a0 royal symbols during the French Revolution to the destruction of Jewish-owned businesses in Nazi Germany via Kristallnacht<\/em>. In placing ongoing events within this tradition, Sophie offers the profound insight that Daesh\u2019s actions are a distinct blend of ancient and modern in that the destruction of cultural heritage become endlessly transmitted via digital media to entrench a repetitive sense of shock analogous to the phenomenon of \u2018click-bait.\u2019<\/p>\n From this historical and theoretical premise, Sophie went on to present a comprehensive overview of the international legal regime governing the protection of cultural heritage. This included tracing the regime\u2019s evolution from the Second World War to its refinement based on the experience of the Balkan Conflict to the most recent developments through the Al-Madhi case at the International Criminal Court. Furthermore, beyond international legal mechanisms, Sophie highlighted the ways in which cultural heritage is being protected through civil society efforts as well as in national legal systems where the criminalisation of trade in looted artefacts offers of means of curbing demand, as well as cutting off a source of financing for groups such as Daesh.<\/p>\n Kent Law School’s Dr Sophie Vigneron delivered a public lecture on \u2018The Destruction of Cultural Heritage: From Byzantine Iconoclasm to Daesh\u2019 in Canterbury city centre … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41003,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[146423,89230,157940],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41003"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions\/209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"cecil-iii-1\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/files\/2016\/11\/CeCIL-III-1-300x200.jpg\")
For everyone wishing to continue or join in this interesting and timely conversation on international law and cultural heritage, please join us next week back on the Kent campus to hear from Marina Lostal Bercerril (The Hague University) who is scheduled to give a talk entitled ‘The Al-Mahdi Case at the International Criminal Court: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"