From the Ashes: Guarantees of Non-Recurrence for Destruction of Cultural Heritage

: Because cultural heritage is a significant aspect of identity, it is often targeted during conflict or periods of repression. The danger may diminish with peace or transition, but it does not evaporate. Heritage is inherently contentious post bellum , so communities fear for the ongoing safety of their heritage, either because conflict might recur or because past patterns of cultural chauvin - ism or neglect might be repeated. The material integrity of heritage has gradually become a matter of concern for transitional justice. It has long been a maxim of transitional justice that dealing with the past implies preventing in the future. There is a need for regulatory schema and administrative structures serving the goal of preserving and protecting the tangible cultural riches of the state and/or communities of origin from the lingering threats that the politics of power might again be played out over heritage. Guarantees of non-recurrence (GNR) offer both an ethos and a framework in which


Introduction: Heritage in the Aftermath of Conflict
Heritage is one of the primary means by which groups at the state, regional, transregional, and local levels share cultural values, foster a sense of belonging, shape memory, and construct identity.It is inseparable from perceptions of power and inclusion.Because communities derive meaning from heritage, it is frequently attacked in civil conflicts as a means of undermining morale and social cohesion. 1xamples of this phenomenon are wearily familiar in intrastate wars -both Cypriot communities deliberately attacked the other's monumental and architectural heritage in the civil war there; 2 the Old Cities of Damascus and San'aa have been destroyed in the civil conflicts in Syria and Yemen (albeit with much external assistance); 3 and Eritreans suffered the loss of monuments, churches, and symbolically important sycamores during their war for separation from Ethiopia. 4This type of cultural destruction is often pre-dated by state and non-state subversion of heritage to reinforce certain dominant identities, 5 as well as outright neglect by

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Post-conflict contexts are extremely difficult for cultural heritage.Heritage managers must wait for a reasonable easing of the humanitarian situation; that is solutions for food, health, and shelter issues for displaced and affected populations must be enacted before cultural heritage can be addressed. 15is paper explores the extent to which transitional justice (TJ) can catalyze the political will to safeguard vulnerable heritage amidst the welter of competing claims for attention.TJ is a body of principles and practices oriented towards "addressing past violations as a means of strengthening the capacity of the transitional state to move forward", and as such it can respond to both past experiences and enduring contemporary risks of heritage destruction. 16Transition tends to be a time for re-evaluation of the politics of heritage, as new narratives or resignifications become embedded. 17In particular, this article assesses whether guarantees of non-recurrence (GNR) might serve as an adequate response to a past loss of heritage and the contemporary risk of recurrence.GNRs are defined herein as "steps taken in response to a violation to prevent them from happening again to the same or other victims similar to them". 18GNRs emerged in part from the Updated Set of Principles to Combat Impunity, the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation and TJ's "never again" ethos to become a distinct obligation and the fourth main limb of TJ -after trial, truth, and reparation.GNRs go beyond responses to individual or collective human rights violations and target the laws, systems, and institutions that commit or permit them.Though steps to prevent abuses are often obvious, GNRs qua guarantee counteract the political tendency towards failure of implementation by reason of limited resources, insufficient capacity, or political will.Familiar forms of GNR include reforms of security services, vetting, education, and repeal of discriminatory laws. 19GNR tends to draw on established international norms. 20This is because, as Lucas Lixinski argues, contemporary heritage norms manifest a "deeply institutionalized and law-shaped set of practices", and thus there is good reason From the Ashes: Guarantees of Non-Recurrence for Destruction of Cultural Heritage to believe they can and should underpin the guarantees contained in TJ's responses to cultural destruction in general, 21 and GNRs in particular.Consequently, I argue that domestic and international policy-makers can draw on the World Heritage Convention (WHC) as an operable and pragmatic framework around which to orient the state's duties as guardians of heritage after a period of conflict or authoritarianism in which this duty was insufficiently exercised. 22Like all forms of GNR, "in practical terms the management and protection of World Heritage properties is very often about managing people, usually in the form of minimising negative human impact". 23Both GNRs and the World Heritage Convention have a predominantly preventive ethos.The positive impact that publicizing and protecting cultural heritage might have on the endurance of heritage underpins the inscription and monitoring processes of the World Heritage Committee and its secretariat, to say nothing of the Endangered Heritage list.The management models that have been developed over time in its implementation "emphasise the process of establishing [heritage] value and identifying and mitigating threats to it". 24hough drawn to the regulatory potential of the WHC and its Operative Guidelines (examined in the third section of this article), it is of course the case that the Convention applies only to material or natural culture of "outstanding universal value" (OUV) on the World Heritage List, i.e. that which is so exceptional as to transcend national boundaries and to be of common importance for present and future generations of all humanity.As such, the Convention is selective -it is not intended to encompass all heritage worthy of protection.This is concerning if we accept that for every UNESCO World Heritage Site -like Old Mosul or the Sufi shrines in Mali -there are countless sites like mosques, churches, temples, and shrines not considered worthy of OUV status and which are destroyed in conflict or are in danger thereof afterwards. 25The WHC has obvious benefits for World Heritage Sites like Cyrene or Shibam, inasmuch as it provides a mechanism by which concerned states can activate internationalized protective measures for heritage at risk, like warnings, surveillance, fencing, and patrols.However, these are not the only sites that have value to communities, and indeed many sites like Palmyra or the 21

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Bamiyan Buddhas have arguably a greater international resonance than domestic.These "quotidian sites" are hard to glamorize and suffer from the disparity of state and international efforts towards OUV heritage, but are every bit as important in the aftermath of conflict. 26As Laurajane Smith puts it: Heritage matters, but it matters not necessarily because it is nice, pretty or an expression of so-called "universal" values, it matters because how it is used has consequences for the individual, community, national, and global understanding of self and "other". 27ticle 12 WHC confirms that "The fact that a property belonging to the cultural or natural heritage has not been included" in either the World Heritage List or the List of World Heritage in Danger "shall in no way be construed to mean that it does not have an outstanding universal value for purposes other than those resulting from inclusion in these lists".Furthermore, Article 5 WHC imports broader commitments than OUV heritage, as States Parties commit themselves in general to establishing effective measures for the protection, conservation, and presentation of the cultural and natural heritage throughout the national territory.As such, Article 5 can and should provide guidance for complex heritage sites that fall outside World Heritage status. 28ore broadly, national-level heritage protections increasingly draw on international legal regimes that do not necessarily protect the heritage in question. 29n short, I am less interested in the WHC as a global regulatory regime with its attendant powers to "name and shame" than its potential impact via Articles 4 and 5 and the Operational Guidelines as an admittedly non-mandatory (except in the case of designated world heritage) but structured praxis to guide domestic policy and rule-making in terms of vulnerable heritage where under-regulation was the norm.Put another way, while drawing on the global legal space of the WHC, I am concerned more with the interests of the nation or community, as opposed to the world, where the internal interest in heritage preservation is significantly greater than the external concern. 30While the guiding principle of the WHC is the exceptionality of heritage, when using the Convention to spearhead guarantees of non-recurrence the guiding factors are imminent threat and/or proven vulnerability.26 P. Newson, R. Young, Conflict: People, Heritage and Archaeology, in: eidem (eds.), op.cit., pp. 5, 6.The article begins by exploring the enduring risk to heritage post-conflict.It then goes on to explore how and why the WHC can inform guarantees of non--recurrence.It concludes by arguing that the risks of alienation with respect to communities -stemming from internationalization and expertise-driven technicism -are in fact manageable.

Post-Bellum Risks to Heritage
The reasons why, and the means by which, heritage is attacked in conflict need little elaboration.What is less well understood is that the end of conflict is not the end of danger to heritage.Many peace agreements mask frozen conflict where the guns have gone silent but there is reason to believe that one or both sides might try to violently revise the settlement.Christine Bell and Jan Pospisil argue that "formalised political unsettlement" is often the best that can be achieved, fashioned around the conflict's fundamental disagreement and yielding an inherently insecure "no war, no peace" dispensation. 31Collective fear, insecurity, and resentment are therefore considered normal, particularly where generalized or localized power vacuums or breakdowns in basic services occur.This background atmosphere of latent violence and revanchism needs to be borne in mind.Heritage is a core aspect of the politics of recognition and status (which of course is why it is targeted in conflict) and it legitimizes claims for political or social justice. 32Heritage serves as "ontic spaces", physical extensions of the community's self-identification process that often serves to exclude some contestations and pluralities that might inhere in the objects or landscape. 33It is for this reason that we misunderstand heritage after conflict.Though heritage destruction is an attempt to delegitimize or demoralize a culture, it tends to be the case that "the underlying repressed culture will eventually re-emerge and, in some cases regenerate in a stronger form than before the suppression". 34The "strong emotions" and "old rancours" that led to material damage during conflict 35 serve as barriers to positive peace if antagonistic narratives remain potent, particularly where heritage was used to shore up an imposed national culture on minorities.31 C. Bell, J. Pospisil, Navigating Inclusion in Transitions from Conflict: The Formalised Political Unsettlement,  "Journal of International Development" 2017, Vol.29(5), pp.583, 584, 590.32   L. Smith, op.cit., p. 392  (ritual, recreation, behaviour). 36It is therefore the case that foregrounding the WHC also foregrounds tangible and natural cultural heritage over intangible cultural heritage as protected in the "necessary measures" to secure things like story-telling, rituals, and craftmanship in the Intangible Heritage Convention. 37There is something to the argument that the historicist-monumentalist preoccupations of the former Convention reflect Eurocentric conceptions of architectural and archaeological heritage that are quite distinct from many cultural concepts in the Global South, and I further accept the artificiality of the distinction between the two (the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention recognizes the "deep-seated interdependence between" the two). 38My focus on tangible and natural heritage owes to the reality that because human lives are "shot through with traditions that will run on whatever happens to buildings", heritage as practice raises different policy dilemmas and possibilities than heritage as product. 39Furthermore, what is ethically possible in terms of the ownership, rebuilding, or presentation of tangible heritage is obviously less circumscribed than what is ethically possible in relation to people. 40That said, any prescriptions or models in terms of GNRs that relate to tangible heritage might apply with greater or lesser force to its intangible manifestations.Indeed, it would seem clear that intangible heritage is enshrined in heritage law "obliquely" through the Operational Guidelines to the WHC. 41hile it is something of an article of faith that the reconstruction or protection of heritage in conflict inevitably enhances the prospects of reconciliation and stability, 42 heritage is too polysemic for this assumption to be a safe one.Annika Björkdahl and Johanna Mannergren Selimovic, for example, show how the international community has misunderstood cross-community bridges in Mostar and across the Drina, enchanting them via metaphor as visual symbols of reconciliation when they in fact are sites of "contentious commemoration", where mutually--exclusive cultural politics of identity are played out. 43Heritage is often at its most 36 D. Rodwell, The Historic Urban Landscape and the Geography of Urban Heritage, "The Historic Environment: Policy & Practice" 2018, Vol.9(3-4), pp.192-193.37   UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, 17 October 2003, 2368  UNTS 3, Art.11(a) From the Ashes: Guarantees of Non-Recurrence for Destruction of Cultural Heritage "dissonant" in the aftermath of war, 44 when it acts as "lightning rods" for the recurrence of divisions, 45 and often becomes "more than ever […] a site of contestation". 46This could be because heritage is shared (e.g. in Palestine, to the very dubious extent we consider it a site of transition); 47 because lack of access to heritage can cause instability; 48 or because attacking heritage is a low-risk but highly communicative weapon of the weak. 49xamples are legion.Kosovo may be the locus classicus.Because Serb Orthodox sites were seen as symbols of oppression and discrimination by the Albanian majority population, ethnic tensions gave rise to the vandalization of Orthodox monasteries and churches, a "reverse ethnic-cultural cleansing" by an Albanian community formerly the victims of discrimination. 50Peace and security arrangements there made establishing an effective protection system for this heritage a political priority for the international community and the interim administration. 51Nevertheless, antagonism over heritage endures.Construction of the Serbian Orthodox Church of Christ the Saviour in Pristina began in 1992 but was never completed on account of the war.The unfinished building still lies there, but every proposal to do something with it sharpens the enduring senses of victimhood and threat. 52Similar dynamics were at play in Bosnia.After the Dayton Accords, restoration of minority heritage in areas where ethno-national majorities had opposed it led to violent contestations, most notoriously the anti-Muslim riots at the cornerstone-laying ceremonies for the Ferhaija Mosque in Banja Luka and the Osman-paša mosque in Trebinje. 53Likewise, in Armenia, although the first Nagorno-Karabakh war ended in 1994, from the late 1990s onwards Azeri Army units systematically destroyed thousands of khachkars (decorated cross-stones charac-

51
Annex 2(6) of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (10 June 1999, UN Doc.S/RES/1244) provided that an agreed number of Serb personnel would maintain a presence at these sites, but this provision was not implemented.

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teristic of medieval Christian Armenian art) in the carved stone Armenian cemetery in Djulfa in the Nakhichevan exclave. 54As Serafim Seppälä notes, after the end of the second Nagorno-Karabakh war, "there is no reason to assume that their fate in the long run will be any better than the hundreds of already demolished Armenian churches and monasteries in Azerbaijan". 55In ostensibly post-conflict Iraq, Shi'a militias have been accused of looting and damaging Christian homes as part of a process to intimidate and prevent the return of minority communities to their traditional homelands after having fled earlier Islamic State attacks. 56In Mali, Muslim architecture has become a proxy in contests within Islam and between Islam and more secular forces, again spurring violent contestation even after Ansar Dine's challenge to shrines in Timbuktu passed. 57here are more mundane risks to heritage that also need to be guarded against in the aftermath of war.Development, be it urban, residential, touristic, agricultural, or commercial, is obviously a risk to heritage insofar as it alters land use, shifts communities, and prioritizes resource extraction over cultural practice. 58The risk man-made climate change poses to tangible heritage also cannot be gainsaid.While these developments and climatic dangers are perpetual and not dependent on conflict, war-time legacies can exacerbate them.Opportunistic or survival looting in Syria's civil war paved the way for future plundering as local people lost their sense of ownership and connection to property. 59It is difficult to divorce conflict legacies from the decision of Kosovar authorities in Dečani (with the support of national authorities in Pristina) to build a road to Montenegro through the Visoki Dečani Special Protective Zone, where the medieval Orthodox Visoki Dečani Monastery is found. 60Restoration of heritage in divided Cyprus has foundered on the rocks of mutual mistrust, disdain, and a failure to appreciate the sensitivity of the other community's material culture. 61f course, the best response to these proven dangers is to emphasize the plural nature of heritage and to reveal the abusive ways in which heritage is manipulated  Indeed the World Heritage Convention acknowledges that cultural and natural heritage are "increasingly threatened with destruction not only by traditional causes of decay, but also by changing social and economic conditions which aggravate the situation with even more formidable phenomena of damage or destruction".The great difficulty the Department [of Archaeology] has in carrying out its duties as curator and guardian of Libyan Heritage is a general ignorance of heritage, a lack of knowledge of the value of archaeological remains for future revenue-earning and employment, and of the long-term benefits of maintaining the historic landscape and bio-diversity for quality of life. 64 Post-conflict Syria was faced with significant sectarian division, while the bodies responsible for care and management of heritage, namely the Department of Antiquities and Museums and the Department of Tourism, were absent in an institutional sense -their staff had not been paid, and there was an (understandable) lack of expertise in confronting the distinctive preservation and documentation problems occasioned by the war there. 65Regime fragmentation in post-Mubarak Egypt led to an increase in looting, illegal digs, and cultural management problems. 66n states like those described above, domestic and international frameworks are seldom applied or enforced at a national level, while some applicable laws and regimes may pre-date key international treaties (e.g.Syria's 1963 Antiquities Law does not include natural and intangible heritage that would today be covered by various conventions) and may not even be understood by those heritage profes-  sionals that are left. 67It may also be the case that "where religion or ethnicity has played a part in conflict, protection of the heritage of minorities and/or the defeated may not be a priority with the majority and/or the victors". 68There is a need for regulatory schema and administrative structures with the general goal of encouraging the preservation of all the tangible cultural riches of the state and/or communities from the lingering threats that the politics of power might again be played out over heritage.GNRs offer both an ethos and a framework in which to prioritize and think through this work of protection, conservation, and safeguarding.

Guarantees of Non-Recurrence: Reparation to Risk-Management
As the Special Rapporteur for Transitional Justice makes clear, GNR is an objective sought to be achieved via a wide range of measures, and an entitlement of previously victimized individuals and communities for whom the state and its institutions are duty bearers.Past individual abuses (such as cultural destruction) are the catalyst for such guarantees, but the remedy is systemic.GNRs are not a principled commitment or moral assurance, but rather "an object of rational policymaking", on a spectrum from the actionable to the ambitious. 69GNRs start from the assumption that potentially recurrent abuses reflect a threshold level of deficiency in the organization and co-ordination of public power.Failing institutions that perpetuate discrimination, exclusion, or violence are targeted for reform or dismantled; new institutions can be developed and new legal frameworks introduced. 70The focus is therefore policy-based in nature, prioritizing institutional design and behaviour: Guarantees of non-recurrence should be developed in response to the context in which the violations occurred.Before adopting any measure, a careful analysis needs to establish what violations took place, why they occurred, how they were implemented, what effects they had, and how they can be best prevented in future. 71Rs represent, perhaps more than any other pillar of TJ, what Christopher Colvin notes as the field's dependence on technique, premised on the notion that with sufficient assistance and reliable systems, various goals can be accomplished competently via careful planning and bureaucratic rationality.From the Ashes: Guarantees of Non-Recurrence for Destruction of Cultural Heritage Many types of legislative or organizational reform can offer opportunities to alleviate proven risks, provided they (a) reflect normative international human rights frameworks, and (b) connect the underlying view of the violation with the proposed guarantee.Initially, GNRs were manifested in three ways: demobilization and disarmament, vetting, and institutional reform of the security sector.However, there developed a growing acceptance that the focus on security and bureaucratic institutions was too narrow, and that GNRs should be expanded beyond these measures to become a more open-ended panoply of actions to respond to different forms of violation through any number of modalities and in a range of different contexts. 73For example, GNRs have been proposed in relation to sexual and gender-based violence against women in Cambodia; 74 corporate land rights abuses in Nepal; 75 and archival accountability in Northern Ireland. 76here is an emerging sense that GNRs can and should be applied to matters of culture.Most notably, the Special Rapporteur for TJ explicitly called for GNR interventions in the hitherto ignored sphere of culture. 77Furthermore, there is a sense that interventions in the cultural sphere are "politically less charged and may be easier to initiate than interventions in the institutional sphere". 78However, when the Special Rapporteur talks about culture in the context of GNRs, he speaks of using cultural interventions (i.e.museums, exhibitions, monuments, and theatre performances) to foster empathy and new victim identities, 79 as opposed to protecting culture from renewed abuse.While these initiatives may prove worthwhile, it is submitted that GNRs are more suited to reshaping national infrastructures and policies than they are to altering attitudes, relationships, and psyches. 80As Paige Arthur argues, TJ tends to work better in the realm of legal-institutional reforms than in the sphere of social relationships, which are multifarious, idiosyncratic, and often insusceptible to policy-making. 81The real value of GNRs is found in effective  regulation tailored to state and non-state capacities for policy-making, implementing, and monitoring of preventive activities. 82t is for this reason that the World Heritage Convention could and should guide GNRs in relation to heritage destruction.The WHC is not the only international institution that (a) generates state duties to protect heritage 83 or (b) provides guidance for designating heritage as meriting protected status. 84It is, however, the one with the highest status and the one with the greatest potential to substantiate the aforementioned "never again" ethos of TJ.In particular, Article 5 on the "effective and active measures [which] are taken for the protection, conservation and presentation of the cultural and natural heritage" replicates the ethos of GNRs with its references to "general policy" and "comprehensive planning programmes"; 85 "services for the protection, conservation and presentation of the cultural and natural heritage"; 86 "mak[ing] the State capable of counteracting the dangers that threaten its cultural or natural heritage"; 87 and "national or regional centres for training in the protection". 88In fact, to the extent that the WHC makes no specific reference to human rights and the difficulties in balancing protection of heritage against the rights of peoples living in its midst, 89 GNRs might consciously improve on the Article 5 framework to foster human rights objectives that are missing in WHC or domestic management plans.Good heritage management, like GNRs, should be "integrated by a set of successive and linked phases: planning, study, preservation, presentation, promotion, sustainability" and take inspiration from international standards. 90Heritage management, like GNRs, give expression to what Michael Brown calls the "administrative mind" -82 Of course, specific provisions in peace agreements (e.g. the Dayton Accords) and constitutional reform (e.g.Article 9 of the Kosovar Constitution) may or may not effect similar or greater change.

83
In particular, the UNESCO Declaration concerning the International Destruction of Cultural Heritage from 2003 (https://en.unesco.org/about-us/legal-affairs/unesco-declaration-concerning-intentional-destruction-cultural-heritage[accessed: 05.02.2023]), though not binding, provides that a state that "intentionally destroys or intentionally fails to take appropriate measures to prohibit, prevent, stop and punish any intentional […] bears responsibility for such destruction to the extent provided for by international law" (at VI).
From the Ashes: Guarantees of Non-Recurrence for Destruction of Cultural Heritage one where bureaucratic administration, fixed rules, and delegated expertise manage complex systems predictably and efficiently. 91f course, heritage politics in any context (whether in peace or war) "is never neutral: It is all about choice where different and often oppositional interest groups concurrently select and promote their symbols". 92Indeed, GNRs may be needed post-conflict precisely because prior heritage regimes were culturally biased, thus facilitating or motivating past destruction or harm.Past harm and proven vulnerability, therefore, should guide what is prioritized in heritage protection.There is no need for a domestic analogue of the WHC's criterion of "outstanding universal value" and the related concepts of exceptional significance, much less ICOMOS's recommended post-conflict WHC standards of commonality (the idea that protected heritage "should be of interest beyond the parties affected by the specific conflict") and neutrality (the idea that heritage should not be "an instrument for celebrating the winners of recent conflicts and their version of history"). 93All that should matter for a GNR is that material culture has been attacked or threatened in the past and/or is clearly or potentially vulnerable in the present or future.In this sense GNRs are narrow -they aim to put in place policies and institutions to prevent damage, but do not resolve underlying threats.They aim for change at the level of institutions, but cannot guarantee changes in personal dispositions.While some suggest heritage policy can "guide sustainable reconciliation" 94 or serve as a "vehicle for identity creation, community outreach and cohesion", no such claim is made here. 95It would be unduly ambitious, per Rosemary Coombe, if people could "be remade or revitalized so as to feel attached to the site as a recuperation of their heritage". 96Simply put, GNRs cannot do this.All they can do in a transitional period is provide a credible formal assurance that material culture is valued and protected in instances where damage or sustained neglect previously reigned.In short, and to draw on Lixinski's formulation, I am more interested in conservation as a technical act (to underpin a message and serve as a praxis of non-repetition), but draw no conclusions as to specific narratives or specific objectives that might extend beyond it or be attached to it. 97

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can serve as a form of "thin recognition" for previously marginalized cultural communities, in the sense that a formal commitment can constitute a threshold acknowledgement of past failures.The continuity of heritage arising from a successful GNR can build resilience over time beyond the artifacts or sites themselves. 98igueras argues that there are three key pillars to post-conflict heritage management, namely: (i) a process of social reconciliation; (ii) a register of damaged or at-risk heritage in need of restoration/reconstruction/consolidation/protection; and (iii) strong political will to underpin and support heritage management strategies. 99As explained above, the first cannot be conjured into existence, and it is the very lack of it that compels GNRs.The second can be developed, for reasons explained below.The third is indispensable for GNRs, which are destined to fail without a threshold level of governmental support.It is generally understood that "the decision as to what is deemed worthy of protection and preservation is generally made by State authorities on the national level". 100We usually associate this idea with proactive political management of culture, but GNRs are, by their nature, reactive responses to past harm, where heritage was disdained or where distinct communities were the mere objects of heritage management.GNRs are only possible with a genuine commitment by a post-conflict government (with the support of the international community, if necessary, and guided by international concepts of heritage like participation) to the protection of the human right to culture and the prohibition of any damage to surviving heritage.GNRs are impossible where a victor's peace or a fragile settlement imposes either a chauvinistic approach or a tentative "wait-and-see" attitude toward heritage status.Meaningful guarantees must transcend narrow state interests in order to genuinely address minority or local needs through culturally-sensitive mechanisms of safeguarding.It is accepted that post-conflict GNRs in relation to tangible cultural heritage should not proceed in isolation, but must be incorporated within the broader processes of peacebuilding, statebuilding, and development, without of course privileging universalist ambitions over local or national ones.

The World Heritage Convention as a Source of GNRs
The WHC, with its list of protected heritage, is widely recognized as "the most effective international legal instrument for the protection of cultural and natural heritage". 101It establishes -in the interests of humanity as a whole -the duties From the Ashes: Guarantees of Non-Recurrence for Destruction of Cultural Heritage and rights on the part of states towards heritage of outstanding universal value on the World Heritage List and List of World Heritage in Danger, and does so through post-Listing monitoring/inspection, expressions of concern, international co-operation (Articles 7 and 13), and the provision of expertise and subsidies via the World Heritage Fund.The World Heritage Committee is the final decision-making body responsible for both the Lists and the Fund, meeting once a year.
As noted earlier, the heritage that the Convention valorizes (that which is of such universal importance that the international community as a whole is called upon to co-operate so as to ensure its conservation) is not necessarily that which is most in danger post-conflict, or that which is of most concern to local/national populations.A GNR that applied only to listed heritage would protect only a minority of the most vulnerable material culture, if even that -a site's World Heritage status depends on outstanding universal value, and not on the quality of the surrounding protection and management plan, so inscription does not guarantee resources, expertise, or political will.Furthermore, lest the argument be accused of undue optimism about the WHC, it is worth noting pre-existing weaknesses like the WHC's Eurocentric bias towards monumentalism, the "manifest deficiencies in the management and funding" of much listed heritage, and the often weak and indirect influence of the Committee and UNESCO on recalcitrant states who do not honour promises made before inscription. 102International heritage law has distinct limitations -the conservation paradigm is not always responsive to the needs of the populations who use heritage, and minority groups have on occasion been alienated from their culture by the listing system. 103I do not argue that states should nominate at-risk heritage for the World Heritage List or the Endangered List, nor do I argue these Lists should widen their criteria to accommodate them.Indeed, an over-emphasis on sites on the World Heritage List tends to lead to neglect of other sites in terms of attention -it is for this reason that many prefer national and regional lists. 104There is no need for recourse to evaluation by international advisory bodies or approval by the Committee.
Notwithstanding these limitations, insofar as the WHC stipulates ideal state duties in relation to heritage protection, it can and should inspire GNRs for two reasons.Firstly, its ethos is directly relevant -as Dennis Rodwell observes, it evolved directly as a strategy to protect individual cultural and natural sites from identified threats 105 and, as noted in the Introduction, its mission extends beyond the civiliza-  tional achievements and unique masterpieces on the List.All heritage protection, be it global or national, "is a meta-cultural intervention -it sets out a framework which posits value, a threat to this value, and a moral obligation to address it". 106However, as Elizabeth Jelin notes, the risk in all TJ is that while transitional governments may adopt programmes and make good faith attempts to institutionalize them, they may prove unstable and subject to "policy reversals according to the whims of changing political circumstances". 107his brings us to the second reason why the WHC should inspire GNRs; namely its stature.Much of the attraction lies in the fact that the WHC and its Operational Guidelines are authoritative, well-publicized, and supplemented with practical guidance to such an extent that it becomes easier to build a fragile consensus.The WHC's prestige, therefore, is such as can compel attention, energy, and normative persuasion in states where economic priorities and past histories of cultural chauvinism might militate against making heritage a top priority.This is not conformity for conformity's sake, but stems from a sense that international heritage discursive frames can persuasively catalyse protective reform, providing normative clarity and consensus that otherwise might not be generated or sustained endogenously.The impetus provided by international heritage law has a "trailblazer" effect outside the Global North -while in Europe, valorized heritage status merely augments pre-existing domestic conservation frameworks, heritage discourse (as well as practice and policy) "unfolds its greatest effects" in places where these values are disseminated, translated, and revived for the first time. 108While international heritage law provides a universalized protection in a global regulatory regime, it has "generally been incorporated into public laws of nations or has acted as an overarching influence which has been gradually adopted", even by initially reluctant nations. 109In particular, as Andrzej Jakubowski has shown, the WHC regime has been recalled or adopted to guide the conservation and management of contested cultural heritage sites that fall outside the OUV categorization. 110Potential applicability to GNRs is obvious if we accept that building on the existing consensus contained in international law makes more practical sense than formulating bespoke laws ab initio to respond to past violations.As Lixinski notes: Transitional justice has long been seen as a primarily legalistic enterprise, so it is amenable to the influence of legal fields […] once heritage is understood as a set of authorizing rules, processes, and laws, it is in a much stronger position to exert its influ-106 H. Deacon, R. Smeets, op.cit., p. 132 I argue that the WHC can be the source for implementable GNRs in relation to heritage, given that the State Parties commit in Article 3 to identifying and delineating cultural heritage, and must ensure the identification, protection, conservation, presentation, and transmission to future generations under Article 4. If we accept that 194 countries have ratified the Convention, some degree of acceptance probably exists in any given post-conflict state -a GNR merely provides an impetus for an already-accepted obligation.It is worth noting that the Convention does not define the procedures that state authorities must follow in adopting decisions in relation to heritage.However, if states consciously recommit to the "active measures" outlined in Article 5 (and canvassed above), predictable consequences follow, as states endow state-level, regional, and local actors with duties towards heritage that may heretofore have attracted little official attention.This is so even if we accept that much "is 'lost in translation' or invariably transformed, as heritage conventions enter the level of state governance". 112he domestic regulatory regime envisaged by the Convention demands the protection of heritage by national legislation.Of course most post-conflict states will have domestic laws (e.g.El Salvador introduced A Special Law for Cultural Heritage Protection in 1993) and bodies (e.g.Mali's Missions Culturelles at its heritage sites) in place to ensure the conservation and protection of national cultural patrimony, and some may have bespoke international heritage regimes built into peacebuilding activities (e.g.Annex 8 of the Dayton Accords establishing in Bosnia a Commission to Preserve National Monuments or the "supervised independence" and subsequent international scrutiny of Kosovo's heritage).In many instances, the problem therefore is less the absence of a legal framework than the lack of "a guiding methodology for effective implementation of conservation practice". 113n post-conflict states like Sierra Leone, it is often the case that heritage legislation needs fundamental revision and new sites or monuments need to be brought within its ambit. 114A concerted effort to give effect to the WHC (and to ratify it in cases where this has not been done) may remedy this lack of methodology and inform fundamental revision.

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At the core of the WHC process is a novel or revised bureaucratization of the heritage process, a sufficient but unavoidably top-down system of decision-making mechanisms and administrative bodies, with institutions at the centre.These regimes inevitably discipline actors and cultural practices via an array of regulatory processes and institutions that transform material culture into certified heritage. 115However, the revision of national heritage policy to foster professionalism and alignment with international standards can also be consistent with the decentralization and depoliticization of heritage -what matters is a close fit between past and present vulnerabilities and proposed revisions.
The main added-value of the WHC is its emphasis on listing heritage for protection and conservation in inventories through formal methodologies of inscription and vigilance.Vulnerable sites/objects can be listed on the basis of stated principles, responsibilities, and procedures.Without the existence of even a bare register of material culture after conflict, the task of securing heritage resources becomes immeasurably harder. 116State, non-state, and even international bodies can enjoy a post-listing right to inspection and regular monitoring under a GNR.Once properties and objects are inscribed on a domestic heritage list by virtue of their vulnerability, attempts to compromise, interfere with, develop, or destroy such sites can attract a much stronger domestic (and potentially international) response and increase political pressure, which should in theory contribute to discouraging unjustifiable interference. 117Depending on the nature of the threat, this can be a highly state-driven enterprise or a more participatory one.As Greg Ashworth and Bart van der Aa point out, "the more decentralized the nominations, the more dominant become local considerations over national ones". 118he listing process envisaged in the WHC is complemented by a strict preference for management strategies.These strategies essentially imply an integrated planning and implementation framework to determine the goals and measures required to realize the protection, maintenance, use, and development of heritage of the type found in UNESCO's Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention.These Guidelines were outlined in February 2001 and have been regularly updated since. 119Pursuant to them, management plans became binding for inscribed World Heritage properties, but the instructions they 115 R. Bendix, A. Eggert, A. Peselmann, Introduction: Heritage Regimes and the State, in: eidem (eds.), op.cit.,  p. 11.   116   A. Higueras, A Post-Conflict Scenario…, p. 142.117   Extrapolating (or intrapolating!) from Ben Boer and Stefan Gruber's theory on how World Heritage Listing works, B. Boer, S. Gruber, op.cit., p. 378.118   G.J. Ashworth, B. van der Aa, op.cit., p. 153.119   The most recent version from 2021 is available here: https://whc.unesco.org/document/190976[accessed: 08.02.2023].
From the Ashes: Guarantees of Non-Recurrence for Destruction of Cultural Heritage set out should be generally applicable for all national heritage protection tout court.
The Guidelines provide as follows: All properties inscribed on the World Heritage List must have adequate long-term legislative, regulatory, institutional and/or traditional protection and management to ensure their safeguarding.This protection should include adequately delineated boundaries.Similarly States Parties should demonstrate adequate protection at the national, regional, municipal, and/or traditional level for the nominated property.They should append appropriate texts to the nomination with a clear explanation of the way this protection operates to protect the property. 120 Paragraphs 96-119 of the Guidelines elaborate, inter alia, standard regulatory measures for protection; the delineation of boundaries and buffer zones; management systems; and ecologically/culturally sustainable uses.Insofar as they reflect UNESCO's policy evolution through updates to knowledge, experiences, and science, the Guidelines provide an authoritative handbook for what should be done in terms of designating, monitoring, and supporting heritage at a time when (a) the risk to heritage is highest; and (b) consensus needs to be built quickly.The Guidelines' stipulations can be augmented, where desirable and/or possible, by other interventions.Indeed, the very act of implementing international law to protect material culture often "brings forth a profusion of additional heritage regimes". 121The WHC framework could thus be augmented by early warning systems and threat monitoring through satellite technology and imagery analysis; 122 plans for "first aid" endeavours to store heritage or find safe havens for it when conflict re-erupts; 123 education and cultural awareness programmes in schools; or dispute-resolution processes for proposed activities concerning heritage. 124Though some legitimately worry that these requirements place "a heavy burden" on countries adopting the rigours of the Listing regime (particularly given the probability that at-risk heritage may greatly outnumber "outstanding universal value" heritage), 125 others argue that "[i]nvestment in the protection and preservation of heritage sites has proven to be one of the most scalable, effective, and targeted means of helping developing VARIA Nr 2 2023 (9) nations". 126GNRs are generally calibrated to the institutional strength of the state in question, avoiding the mismatch between aspirations and administrative capacity that blights TJ more generally in weakly institutionalized states. 127

Problems of Expertise and Internationalization
It is to be hoped that drawing on the World Heritage Convention to inspire GNRs would catalyse greater international assistance.The WHC "has served as a tool for internationalising the protection of cultural sites in contested or post-conflict territories" on a number of occasions, 128 though given the non-universal appeal of much of the heritage, this can only be suggested, not assumed.However, for the most part GNRs in this area involve "seeing like a state" insofar as heritage is inventoried and made legible through documentation and inscription at a national level, which is a regular source of critique in critical heritage studies and TJ. 129It is reasonable to point out the risk that heritage work like this might replicate the familiar objection that TJ is framed in technicist terms as "a set of policy choices aimed at certain outcomes" like reconciliation, stability, democracy, or (it might be added) cultural protection, 130 because this elevates technical and mobile forms of expertise that border on what Brian Kagoro labels "knowledge imperialism". 131To draw on the WHC to inform transitional justice risks re-inscribing the "hegemonic quality of the law", that in addition to being unhelpfully universalist can also "disenfranchise" national or local perspectives on how to respond to past injustices. 132However, the binary division into national/international "experts" and local "knowledge" actually creates a spectrum of potential international involvement, leadership, or mere participation, something that is apparent in how the WHC has evolved.
While the WHC (or its use to inspire national frameworks) undoubtedly "privileges state agency", and while the Operational Guidelines have no systematic requirement to demonstrate meaningful community involvement in the iden-From the Ashes: Guarantees of Non-Recurrence for Destruction of Cultural Heritage tification or management of heritage, 133 this should not be overstated.There is always the risk that heritage is institutionalized in the conservation paradigm as "an expert-driven, state endorsing narrative", 134 but the historically-informed, consciously reactive, and protective ethos underpinning GNRs should guard against this.A government that can point to proven jeopardy can insulate itself against allegations that the inscription of heritage is being used to shore up the claims of dominant groups.It is legitimate to warn that state-centricity can operate to marginalize communities on the ground, 135 but the ethos of GNRs implies sensitivity to the types of chauvinism or exclusion that catalysed past abuse.
Likewise, GNRs for cultural heritage create the spectre of employing rationalized and universalized knowledge as expertise to make social and cultural problems "'tamable' and 'thinkable' within bureaucratic frameworks", a critique levelled at both heritage management 136 and TJ's ostensible reduction of its goals to a depoliticized "technocratic equation" of practices drawing on internationally legible models, expected costs, and anticipated outcomes. 137However, the roots of GNR in reparative theory and TJ's more recent impetus towards broader ownership and participation of those who have been most deeply affected by conflict 138 make the familiar binaries of "expert versus community" inapt when authenticating heritage or implementing TJ.Expertise is a necessary component if heritage safeguards are to be (re)institutionalized, but they should not monopolize it.Human rights standards involving greater participation by minorities and Indigenous groups have been de rigeur in the WHC regime (including the Operational Guidelines) for nearly two decades. 139Undoubtedly, formalizing localized responsibility for heritage identification and/or inscription will present difficulties if it has formerly been jealously guarded by the state.Obvious risks attend uncoordinated measures at the local level if the state does not have a residual power to pre-empt certain divisive usages or transfers.The "continued mismatch between the practical reality and the administrative ideal regarding the role of local communities and well-being in heritage conservation" is something that must be guarded against. 140133 H. Deacon, R. Smeets, op.cit., pp.131, 132.134 L. Lixinski, op.cit., p. 34.135   Ibidem, pp. 24, 46.136   L. Smith, op.cit., p. 393 from which the quote is taken.137 P. Akhavan, Remarks by Payam Akhavan, "Proceedings of the Annual Meeting (American Society of International Law)" 2013, Vol.107 (International Law in a Multipolar World), pp.90, 92.The parallels between critiques of heritage and TJ are noted in detail in L. Lixinski, op.cit., pp.16-24, 187.Where deference to local views goes beyond lip service, embedding the practices of inscription, monitoring, and technical assistance we see in the WHC at state level is not so much "a move towards technique at the expense of politics" 141 as a form of technique in the service of a politics that consciously responds to past abuses.Put another way, it replaces forms of cultural nation-building characterized by indifference or symbolic domination with one premised on protection and consultation.Paternalism is a near-constant feature of most heritage work, serving to exclude key actors or to filter their views through alternative actors. 142Familiar concerns about the state as an apparatus of power for cultural governmentality may never be fully assuaged, but this makes the guardrails that GNRs provide more, not less, valuable.A traditional conservation model focused on the legal enforcement of preservative policies can complement the modern "values-based" cultural heritage management that emphasizes how heritage knowledge and expertise can be co-created between state and community for the benefit of both.Conservation in this sense interacts with the risks from growth, environment, and tourism -the paradigm is as much the management of change (e.g.harmonizing land use restrictions with local expectations) as it is about protection, potentially reassuring communities of good faith and lowering the temperature where difficult decisions must be made.

Conclusions
As Helaine Silverman and D. Fairchild Ruggles argue, "It is precisely because cultural heritage is a significant aspect of identity that it is the arena where conflict occurs". 143While the danger may diminish with peace or transition, it does not evaporate -for the reasons outlined in above, communities fear for the ongoing safety of their heritage, either because conflict might recur or because past patterns of cultural chauvinism or neglect might be repeated.Heritage, for this reason, is inherently contentious post bellum: In the aftermath, cultural heritage can therefore be used to serve a number of functions acting simultaneously as receptor, container, and reflector of intention, meaning, and emotion.Whether it is rebuilt, restored, ignored, or preserved in a ruined state, each action will be presented and interpreted as part of the construction of the new, post-conflict, society. 144rom the Ashes: Guarantees of Non-Recurrence for Destruction of Cultural Heritage The material integrity of heritage has gradually become a matter of concern for TJ. 145Guarantees of non-recurrence are one area where TJ can address past heritage destruction by developing institutional and human capacities for its resilience and protection.Cultural heritage law, insofar as it provides authoritative guidelines for promoting conservation and preventing abuses, "mediates this process by enabling and embedding choices about what heritage is, why it should be protected, and for whose benefit". 146However, in the past existing domestic laws have proven ineffective in conflicts, and may prove ineffective as well in the present in cases where disagreement ensues about the meaning or ownership of cultural property, and where enforcement mechanisms for heritage protection are weakened or politically-biased.This article thus argues that the World Heritage Convention -notwithstanding its circumscribed emphasis on material and places of outstanding universal value -is both applicable to all heritage to which a GNR might attach and provides an achievable "good enough" practice model provided there is a threshold level of domestic political will.It circumvents time-consuming debates about best models at a time of maximum jeopardy by providing a plan of action, and enjoys sufficient status and authority to galvanize policy.I do not argue that safeguarding heritage conduces the restoration of peace, builds reconciliation, or resolves conflicts.It is surely enough that the state works with communities on heritage identification, inscription, management, and monitoring its form to preserve what remains, in keeping with Bell's recent plea for "more modest and realistic approaches to" what TJ can achieve. 147

138
Elaborated in most chapters of M. Evans (ed.),Beyond Transitional Justice: Transformative Justice and the State of the Field (or Non-Field), Routledge, London 2022.139 UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Linking Universal and Local Values: Managing a Sustainable Future for Heritage, UNESCO, Paris 2004.140 H. Jang, J. Mennis, The Role of Local Communities and Well-Being in UNESCO World Heritage Site Conservation: An Analysis of the Operational Guidelines, 1994-2019, "Sustainability" 2021, Vol.13(13), p. 7154.

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.Of course, culture is manifested not only in what a society has, but also in what it thinks (tradition, beliefs) and how it behaves .
From the Ashes: Guarantees of Non-Recurrence for Destruction of Cultural Heritage by conflict entrepreneurs. 62wever, in parallel (and perhaps prior) to this educational and expressive work, more prosaic issues of preservation and management need to be emphasized given the state's past failure to mitigate against, if not actually cause, heritage damage.Many of the risks posed by post-conflict antagonisms, to say nothing of environmental catastrophe and development, could be mitigated by a national agenda for the effective governance of heritage.Agencies or departments are usually entrusted with reconciling conflicting interests between communities (as Harriet Deacon and Rieks Smeets note, many of these disputes are as much about the appropriate stewardship of heritage as they are about its value)63or between the interests of heritage and development.However, the post-conflict dispensation tends to exacerbate the usual problems countries in the developing world have in relation to heritage protection, namely: (i) inadequate resources on account of poverty or underdevelopment; (ii) suboptimal political control in areas of limited statehood; and (iii) paltry technical knowledge caused by out-migration.The situation of transitional Libya is symptomatic of the difficulties faced by states that want to protect sensitive and/or at-risk heritage: There is, however, good reason to believe that GNRs 91 M. Brown, The Possibilities and Perils of Heritage Management, in: C. Seils (ed.), Cultural Heritage Ethics: Between Theory and Practice, Open Book Publishers, Cambridge 2014, p. 172.
. Memory and Democracy: Toward a Transformative Relationship, in: P. Gready, S. Robins (eds.),From Transitional to Transformative Justice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2019, p. 187.World Heritage, Cultural Conflicts and Political Reconciliation, in: A. Durbach, L. Lixinski (eds.), op.cit., p. 253.From the Ashes: Guarantees of Non-Recurrence for Destruction of Cultural Heritage ence on TJ.Heritage law regulates: how heritage is selected; for what purposes; what its narrative is or what it means to society; how it is funded; who gets to speak on its behalf; where, when, and how it is displayed, engaged, and celebrated. 111 107 E. Jelin, 108 C. Brumann, D. Berliner, op.cit., p. 12. 109 B.Boer, S. Gruber, op.cit., pp.375-376.110A.Jakubowski,