In addition to rules designed to ensure the protection and respect of cultural property during an armed conflict, these agreements also provide for security measures to be implemented in times of peace.

The Board of the Pan-American Union subsequently presented a treaty "on the protection of artistic and scientific institutions and historical monuments", which was signed on 15 April 1935 in the White House by 21 states in North, Central and South America.

The symbol was also called the "Banner of Peace", the movement based on the Roerich Pact under the name Pax Cultura in analogy to the Geneva Conventions as the "Red Cross of Culture".

As the USA is not party to the 1999 Second Protocol of the Hague Convention, the Roerich Pact is therefore still of importance as a contractual obligation in the area of cultural property protection.

The Nazi Party headed by Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany in 1933 after the country's crippling defeat, and its socioeconomic distress during the years following World War I.

[6] By the end of the Second World War, the Nazi party had looted and collected thousands of objects, art works and artefacts from occupied nations, destroyed many, or stored them in secret.

This is illustrated greatest in the Jewish communities throughout Europe; by devising a series of laws that allowed them to justify and regulate the legal confiscation of cultural and personal property.

In the Soviet Union, Nazi plunder of cultural significant art is best illustrated in the Third Reich's pillage of the Catherine Palace near St Petersburg and its famous Amber Room dating to the early 1700s.

With the conclusion of the Second World War and the subsequent defeat of the Axis Powers, the atrocities which the Nazi leadership condoned, leading to the removal of culturally significant items and the destruction of numerous others could not be allowed to occur in future generations.

As a result, following the signature of the Roerich Pact by the American States in 1935, attempts were undertaken to draft a more comprehensive convention for the protection of monuments and works of art in time of war.

It stipulates: 'The High Contracting Parties undertake to prepare in time of peace for the safeguarding of cultural property situated within their own territory against the foreseeable effects of an armed conflict, by taking such measures, as they consider appropriate.

(3) The High Contracting Parties further undertake to prohibit, prevent and, if necessary, put a stop to any form of theft, pillage or misappropriation of, and any acts of vandalism directed against, cultural property.

The Second Protocol seeks complement and expand upon the provisions of the Hague Convention, by including developments in international humanitarian law and cultural property protection which had emerged since 1954.

It also receives and considers requests for international assistance which are submitted by States, as well as determining the use of the Fund for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.

It also provides financial or other assistance in relation to 'emergency, provisional or other measures to protect cultural property during periods of armed conflict', or for recovery at the end of hostilities.

[17] Chapter Four of the Second Protocol specifies sanctions to be imposed for serious violations against cultural property, and defines the conditions in which individual criminal responsibility should apply.

Al Mahdi was charged with and pleaded guilty to the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against historic monuments and buildings dedicated to religion, and sentenced to nine years' imprisonment.

It relates only to the international laws governing armed conflict, and does not discuss military assistance that is provided in connection with other circumstances such as natural disasters.

[21][22] Article 3 of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia also contains provisions that allow the prosecution of violations of the fundamental principles of the Hague Convention of 1954.

On the basis of this article, for the first time since the conclusion of the Convention, proceedings were brought in an international court for the destruction of cultural property during an armed conflict.

Within the Old City are many medieval churches, cathedrals, and palaces from the Baroque period, encircled by its fortified wall, which would ensure its listed place by UNESCO as a world heritage site in 1972.

[25] The court's convictions, which among other charges were also based on this article, were issued in February 2001 against Dario Kordić,[26] a commander of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) during the war in Bosnia, against Miodrag Jokić,[27] a senior commander in the navy of the Yugoslav People's Army during the Battle of Dubrovnik in 1991, and against Milan Martić,[28] a politician and military leader of the internationally unrecognized Republic of Serbian Krajina.

This type of destruction was in step with that of the Old Town of Dubrovnik, where the aim was the eradication of the memory of the people that once occupied the land, an effort reminiscent of the Third Reich and the Nazi party.

[32] Although Libya, Syria and Iraq ratified the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict in 1957, 1958 and 1967 respectively,[33] it has not been effectively enforced.

The main reason for the long period between signature and ratification by the United States were the reservations of the US Department of Defense during the Cold War, that the Convention's obligations regarding the possible use of nuclear weapons could not be fulfilled.

[35] The Joint Chiefs of Staff, to which the commanders-in-chief of all units of the American armed forces belong, unanimously declared itself in 1995 in favour of voluntary compliance with the Convention.

It acts as depositary[clarification needed] of the Hague Convention of 1954 and its two Protocols and administers the International Register of Cultural Property under Special Protection.

[38] Since the International Committee was founded in 1996, national Blue Shield Committees have been established in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Benin, Brazil, Chile, Curaçao, Denmark, France, Georgia, Guatemala, Haiti, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Madagascar, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Senegal, Spain, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and the US,[39] comparable to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

[41] Despite the partial dissolution of state structures and the very unclear security situation resulting from the wars and unrest in Iraq, Syria, Mali, Egypt and Libya, the employees of Blue Shield and its national organizations then carried out very robust undertakings to protect the cultural assets there.

One example of international cooperation in the protection of cultural assets was the temporary storage of art treasures from the National Museum in Kabul, Afghanistan, in Switzerland.