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This chapter maps the relationships between heritage and empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and their impact on notions of world heritage. It connects the history of heritage in the metropole with that in the colonies, and relates imperial entanglements to other emerging transnational connections. It outlines commonalities and differences across the British empire and compares the British situation with developments elsewhere. Mapping shifting attitudes to ‘plunder’ and ‘preservation’, it shows how imperialism and preservationism were mutually constitutive as preservation was increasingly promoted as an instrument of good governance. However, it also shows how, across the British empire, a rhetoric of imperial preservation masked the appropriation of indigenous knowledge by the imperialists, while imperial notions of heritage were subverted and reclaimed by the colonized.

Arguments based on both in vitro and in silico models suggest that biogeochemical cycles will readily evolve on planets with life, along with many of the putative fundamental processes described in this book. Artificial life models illustrate the potential for these emergent cycling systems to have a positive Gaian effect. The well-known potential for exponential growth in unconstrained ecological systems suggests that these emergent systems will often regulate their environments around low nutrient states (biotic plunder), rather than at states which optimize productivity. In this context, it makes sense to define Gaia in relation to prolonged habitability of a planet, but not as a process which maximises biological productivity.

This chapter assesses the evolution of international norms against cultural plundering, focusing on two crucial turns through the cycle of normative change: the Napoleonic Wars and World War II. The empirical account, based on both secondary and archival sources, clearly depicts cycles of normative change as posited in Chapter 1. International rules prohibiting plunder are part of the stream of sovereignty norms; antiplunder rules protect the right of states to their cultural patrimony, a right that states retain even in defeat or under occupation.

This chapter begins with a brief overview of the organization and extent of Nazi plundering during World War II. It then moves to an account of how the Allies perceived and applied anti-plundering norms. The Allied program of restitution reaffirmed international rules against the seizure of cultural properties during wartime. The debates that surrounded (primarily) American and British efforts to undo the Nazi confiscations offer a view of normative evolution as it occurred in the rush of events.

The half-ruined Colosseum is the most infamous symbol of the Renaissance plundering of antiquity. This chapter challenges this received truth by investigating how Renaissance excavations conformed to precise legislative measures at the site. The history of the Passion plays at the site represents a notable instance of adaptive reuse and Renaissance preservation practices.

This chapter examines the domestic and international political conflicts underlying the cooperative efforts against the plunder of antiquities. The first section introduces illicit trade in antiquities. The second section explores the battle between source countries, who have advocated stringent international regulation of antiquities, and market countries, who have questioned the desirability and feasibility of such regulation. The third section explains why the United States reversed its liberal approach to the movement of cultural material, joined the international efforts against looting, and established controls on antiquities—to the benefit of foreign countries facing archaeological plunder and to the detriment of the U.S. art market. The fourth section explores Britain's surprising accession to the UNESCO Convention in 2002, after having rejected it for more than three decades. The American and British cases both demonstrate how temporal changes in preferences can bring previously reluctant governments to cooperate against illicit trade.

This chapter focuses on how the looting of the Iraqi National Museum, following the arrival of US troops in Baghdad in 2003, triggered another cycle of norm development. The almost universal condemnation heaped upon the United States for its failure to secure the museum suggests that the international community may now recognize an obligation not just to refrain from plundering or destroying cultural treasures but to prevent others from carrying out such assaults on cultural patrimony. It argues that in some future conflict, the memory of Baghdad will almost certainly generate an expectation that the victor has the duty to protect the cultural patrimony of the defeated.

This chapter discusses the dynamics of international norm change. It argues that a single great power cannot dictate norms, but agreement among the major states is usually a prerequisite for norm change. It outlines the advantages of taking the long historical view of norm dynamics, as was done in the preceding chapters. It also discusses the relationship between power and norms.

This chapter begins with a brief description of the primary goal of the book, which is to provide a general model of international norm change and probe its usefulness by explaining the development of rules that prohibit the wartime plunder of cultural treasures. The chapter then discusses rules in international relations, rules in social life, and the cycle of normative change. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.

This chapter identifies two sets of changes in the 18th century that seemed to be weakening the foundations of what had long been the practice, and acknowledged right, of plunder. First, the veneration of art, shared by cultural and political elites across Europe, implied special protections for masterpieces of artistic creation. Second, Enlightenment efforts to rationalize war justified only those applications of force that were necessary to achieve military objectives, and sought to limit war's destructiveness. Protections for cultural monuments were part of the emerging principles of restraint in war. Art plunder as a symbolic dimension of war, art as an object of veneration, and the rules of war are discussed.

This chapter shows how French plundering triggered intense debates, which in turn led to new, emergent norms against the seizure of art treasures as trophies of war. It provides examples of the major normative arguments offered on the various sides. The account begins with the official French position and the internal opposition to it, then proceeds to the crucial restitution debates of 1814 and 1815.

Voracious French art plundering in the wars of 1793-1815 shocked Europe and provided the foundation for an international norm against it. The effort to establish laws of war was the project of lawyers, diplomats, and scholars who formed a transnational network with shared professional interests and objectives. Because many of these writers actively participated in the conventions on the laws of war, they have been dubbed the “international law activists”. This chapter begins with a brief discussion of early 19th-century writers. It then turns to Francis Lieber, one of the first of the law activists and certainly the most influential. It discusses Lieber's ideas on the rules of war, which informed all subsequent efforts to establish positive international law against wartime art plunder. The chapter then tracks Lieber's influence on the major conferences and conventions of the latter part of the century, through the second Hague Peace Conference (1907).

This chapter discusses destruction of cultural property during World War I, and the subsequent restitution debates and settlements. World War I triggered another important turn through the cycle of norm change. The destruction by the Germans of cultural monuments in Belgium and northern France triggered intense debates about the meaning and application of the rules of war and the protection of cultural treasures. Governments and public opinion in Belgium, France, Britain, and the United States condemned the destruction of the library at Louvain and of Rheims cathedral as German violations of the rules of war. After the armistice, the peace agreements imposed on Germany explicit obligations to return artworks or replace those that had been destroyed. In the two decades following World War I, a series of initiatives sought to improve and strengthen the norms protecting cultural property during wartime: the draft Rules of Aerial Warfare (1923), the Roerich Pact (1935), and the IMO Draft Convention (1938).

This chapter is a continuation of the cycle of norm change that began with Nazi looting during World War II. In response to the shocking intensity of German art looting during World War II, the Allies sought to strengthen international rules against art plunder. Their efforts found expression in the Nuremberg prosecutions and in the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The Nuremberg Tribunal held Nazi leaders accountable for crimes against cultural heritage. The 1954 Hague Convention was the capstone of postwar efforts to solidify international antiplunder norms.

This chapter examines recent developments that have contributed to the ongoing cycle of normative evolution. It focuses on two wars in the 1990s that propelled the protection of cultural treasures back into international consciousness: the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91 and wars in the former Yugoslavia.

Disputes over works of art and other cultural properties plundered during World War II are driving the elaboration of rules in national arenas and in the private sphere. This chapter examines various instances in which the general norms have been applied to specific problems. It describes these cases as subcycles of normative development. These subcycles have occurred at the level of state-to-state relations and private claims. The efforts of the heirs of plunder victims to recover cultural properties have sometimes induced governments to adjust national policies. Museums have been compelled to re-examine their collections, as well as their procedures for buying, borrowing, or accepting donated works of art. Litigation has led to changes in domestic laws on restitution of Holocaust-era assets.

This chapter addresses the muhtasib’s actions in the area of general public order. In the first case, the muhtasib investigated a mysterious talking wall and identified the perpetrators of the hoax and delivered them to the sultan for punishment. In the second case, the muhtasib forced the merchants to open their shops after they closed them out of fear of widespread unrest due to the sultan’s imminent death. In the third case, the muhtasib investigated the plundering of a number of shops in central Cairo by a group of boys.

This chapter examines the tribunals' war-crimes jurisprudence. Section 1 explores when the Hague and Geneva Conventions applied, how the tribunals defined ‘occupation’, and whether the applicability of the Conventions was affected by the illegality of a particular aggressive war or invasion. Section 2 discusses two issues involved in the summary execution of partisans: when partisans could qualify as lawful combatants, and whether unlawful combatants could be summarily executed. Section 3 focuses on crimes against prisoners of war. Section 4 examines crimes against civilians, particularly slave labour and deportation. Finally, Section 5 addresses the crime against property of plunder/spoliation.