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When I was asked by Dr. O'Keefe, Book Editor of the International Journal of Cultural Property, to review "War and Cultural Heritage" by Kevin Chamberlain I immediately agreed because I wished to see the first scholarly article-by-article commentary on the 1999 Second Protocol ("the Second Protocol") to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict ("the Convention") as well as another commentary on the Convention and the 1954 First Protocol.
I was not disappointed because the publication contains a comparative analysis of the Convention and the First and the Second Protocols, which is of particular use in demonstrating to students, scholars and practitioners of international humanitarian and cultural heritage protection law the genesis of the development of the international legal protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict. In particular, I found very useful references to the relationship between the First Protocol, on the one hand, and the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Property on the other. It is also important that the publication analyzes the issue of cultural property displaced in relation to the Second World War, though it is not, strictly speaking, linked to the implementation of the 1954 Convention, the 1954 Protocol...