[pdf] Cultural Heritage Issues

Over the last century, international law has sought to keep pace with sweeping changes that have revolutionised the international community. It has done so in various ways: by developing new fields, adopting new legal instruments, and including new actors and entities in the international fora. Human rights law and environmental law have emerged to address essential issues raised by civil society. Treaties, judgments and soft law instruments have attempted to fill the gaps in regulation. International organisations, corporations, civil society organisations and individuals have all worked to make and enforce, also by judicial means, legal rules. But is all this sufficient?

This book summarizes work being undertaken within the School Activates Resources—stitching the lost heritage of the suburbs (ScAR) project, which addressed cultural heritage in a broad sense, as a system of values identified by the populations and in constant evolution. This tangible and intangible heritage fuels the promotion of intergenerational and intercultural dialogue and represents an opportunity for resilient social and territorial development.

This book analyses the problematics of archaeological heritage management in the Canary Islands, which are echoed in other parts of the world where the indigenous heritage is under-represented. The present-day management of Canarian archaeological heritage has a very specific and unusual context given that the archipelago is located on the fringes of Europe, belonging to Spain and therefore to the European Unión, but geographically and in terms of early history being part of Africa.

This edited collection, which brings together nearly fifty authors from across the globe and various disciplines, makes a valuable contribution to the field of conservation, covering a wide range of topics regarding the protection of heritage in times of war and peace. Uniquely linking the two typically separate perspectives, the book builds on the wealth of discussions that took place during the 2021 and 2022 installments of the international “Heritage in War and Peace” Seminars held in Rome and Montréal, respectively.