Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage, Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide: Towards an Evolutionary Interpretation of International Criminal Law

In the past few years, with the materialization of ISIL in the Middle East, the plague of intentional destruction of cultural heritage has reached a hemorrhagic level. Beginning in 2014, the Caliphate has blatantly destroyed and obliterated forever a huge amount of irreplaceable pieces of cultural heritage in Iraq, Syria and Libya, including mosques, shrines, churches, ancient sites, libraries and monuments. Today international law is slowly and laboriously coping with the need of adjusting its relevant rules to the real substance of, and to the implications arising from, the crime of intentional destruction of cultural heritage. In this respect, in addition to the qualification of the crime in point as a war crime, it is also recognized as a crime against humanity as well as evidence of the intent to commit genocide.