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SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 403
I. HISTORY OF PROTECTION FOR CULTURAL PROPERTY.................................. 405
II. THE 1954 HAGUE CONVENTION AND ITS PROTOCOLS................................... 408
A. First Protocol............................................................................................... 411
B. Second Profoco/..........................................................................................411
III. WEAKNESSES OF THE HAGUE CONVENTION AND ITS PROTOCOLS ..............413
IV. APPLICATION OF THE HAGUE CONVENTION TO NON-STATE ACTORS: A STUDY OF IRAQ AND LIBYA ..............................................................................415
A. The Looting of the Iraq Museum..............................................................Al5
B. The Legal Framework for Applying the Hague Convention to Nonstate Actors..................................................................................................A18
C. The Conflict in Libya.................................................................................. 422
CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................... 425
INTRODUCTION
In early 2011, violent uprisings swept through Northern Africa.1 In Libya, the uprisings turned into an extended armed conflict between the Libyan government and U.N.-backed rebel forces, finally resulting in the overthrow of the Libyan government led by Muammar el-Qaddafi.2 The increasing violence led the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Committee of the Blue Shield3 to issue statements in March urging both the Libyan government and the coalition forces to protect Libya's cultural property.4 The Blue Shield asked both sides to respect the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954 Hague Convention), to which Libya is a signatory party.5 The Blue Shield statement is notable because it exhorts "all parties involved" in the conflict (which presumably includes the Libyan rebel group, a non-state actor) to respect an international treaty even though only state parties are traditionally bound by treaties. UNESCO later issued another statement calling on "the parties involved in the armed conflict in Libya to ensure the protection" of specific cultural sites.6 Since the number of conflicts involving non-state actors is growing,7 the groups' statements raise the question of whether international treaties like the Hague Convention can be used to bind not only state actors, but non-state actors as well.
For the Hague Convention to effectively protect cultural property, it must apply to non-state actors in non-international armed conflicts. To achieve this goal, the Hague Convention's application to non-state actors must be strengthened and clarified. In this Note, I examine the 1954 Hague Convention, focusing particularly on the application of the Convention to non-state actors. Part I outlines the development of laws protecting cultural property. Part II examines the important provisions of the 1954 Hague Convention...