UNESCO to protect Ukraine's heritage sites.
~Preet.
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In light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has recently advocated for preventive measures to safeguard Ukraine's threatened cultural legacy. To prevent intentional or unintentional destruction, the agency is labelling cultural sites and monuments throughout Ukraine with the unique "Blue Shield" logo of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.
UNESCO is a United Nations specialised organisation (UN). It aims to promote peace via worldwide collaboration in education, science, and culture. It was established in 1945 and is headquartered in Paris, France. It is made up of 193 members and 11 associate members. India became a member of UNESCO in 1946. The United States and Israel formally left UNESCO in 2019.
Armed wars have always wreaked devastation on people's lives throughout history. In addition to the humanitarian costs, conflicts have resulted in widespread loss of cultural assets, undermining the basis of communities, long-term peace, and the hopes for reconciliation. Given the importance of cultural property preservation for all peoples across the world and the necessity for universal protection, the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict was enacted under the auspices of UNESCO in 1954. The 1954 Hague Accord is the name given to this convention. It is the first and most comprehensive international convention solely dedicated to the protection of cultural assets in times of peace as well as military conflict. The convention seeks to safeguard cultural property such as architectural, artistic, or historical monuments, archaeological sites, works of art, manuscripts, books, and other objects of artistic, historical, or archaeological interest, as well as scientific collections of any kind, regardless of their origin or ownership. India is a party to Hague Convention.
Article 6 of the 1954 Hague Convention states that cultural property may bear a distinctive emblem so as to facilitate its recognition. In pursuance of this, the Blue Shield, formerly the International Committee of the Blue Shield was founded in 1996. It is a non-governmental, non-profit multinational organisation dedicated to the preservation of cultural assets worldwide. The Blue Shield network is often regarded as the cultural counterpart of the Red Cross. The Blue Shield is a global network of dedicated individuals committed to protecting the world's cultural heritage from threats such as armed conflict and natural catastrophes. Museums, monuments, archaeological sites, archives, libraries, and audio-visual material, as well as significant natural regions and intangible heritage, are all included. Some states have refused to label its cultural property, claiming that doing so would leave the property more vulnerable to attack by an opponent trying to destroy its national emblems. Unfortunately, this was the situation during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, when cultural property with the Blue Shield was deliberately targeted.
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