Book Review: Joan-Marc Ferrando Hernández, 'La destrucción de bienes culturales en conflicto armado: el caso del Dáesh en Siria' (Tirant lo Blanch 2025)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5334/ybgmb528Keywords:
Cultural Heritage, war crimes, Syrian civil war, International Humanitarian Law, crimes against humanityAbstract
Joan-Marc Ferrando Hernández’s book is the most comprehensive and up-to-date study of the protection of cultural property in wartime available in Spanish. Combining the author’s training as a historian and a lawyer, the book offers a thorough historical and normative account of the subject: from ancient warfare to the most recent armed conflicts (Part I), through the legal configuration of the destruction of cultural property as an international crime and the lacunae in the current protection regime (Part II), to a detailed scrutiny of accountability mechanisms for the crimes committed by Da’esh in Syria between 2013 and 2017 (Part III). Throughout, Ferrando Hernández draws on diverse legal traditions, thereby moving beyond the Eurocentric approach that characterizes much of the existing academic literature. The result is a critical work that constitutes a rigorous doctrinal contribution and an impassioned plea for the development of international law and institutions capable of preventing the destruction of cultural property in wartime.
References
1. Article 245 of the Treaty of Versailles (28 June 1919), and Articles 191-196 of the Treaty of Saint-Germain (10 September 1919).
2. See the few works written at the time: James W. Garner, ‘Questions of International Law in the Spanish Civil War’ (1937) 31 AJIL 1, 66-73; Norman J. Padelford ‘International Law and the Spanish Civil War’ (1937) 31 AJIL 2, 226-243; Arnold D. McNair, ‘The Law Relating to the Civil War in Spain’ (1937) 53 Law Quarterly Review 4, 471-500.
3. Decision on the Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction in the case the Prosecutor v. Duško Tadić IT-94-1-AR72 (Appeals Chamber, 2 October 1995), para. 70.
4. Ibid., paras. 97-98.
5. Judgement in the case the Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstić IT-98-33-T (Trial Chamber, 2 August 2001), para. 580.
6. See Judgement in the case the Prosecutor v. Pavle Strugar IT-01-42-T-A (Appeals Chamber, 17 July 2008); Judgement in the case the Prosecutor v. Radoslav Brđanin IT-99-36-T (Trial Chamber II, 1 September 2004); Judgement in the case the Prosecutor v. Dario Kordić and Mario Čerkez IT-95-14/2-A, (Appeals Chamber 17 December 2004); Sentencing Judgement in the case the Prosecutor v. Miodrag Jokić IT-01-42/1-S (Trial Chamber I, 18 March 2004); Judgement in the case the Prosecutor v. Enver Hadžihasanović and Amir Kubura IT-01-47-T (Trial Chamber, 15 March 2006); and Judgement in the case the Prosecutor v. Mladen Naletilić aka “Tuta” and Vinko Martinović aka “Štela” IT-98-34-T (Trial Chamber, 31 March 2003).
7. Statement of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, on the alleged crimes committed by ISIS (ICC, 8 April 2015) https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/item.aspx?name=otp-stat-08-04-2015-1 accessed 23 April 2026.
8. See UNGA Res. 71/248, 21 December 2016.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Dr. Vanesa Menéndez Montero (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
