Making destroying cultural heritage a crime against humanity would create severe strategic disadvantages for our armed forces.  The current UNESCO conventions are correct in allowing for the possibility of a waiver on our international duty to protect cultural property should a case of military urgency arise. The Proposition argue for the implementation of overly-rigid international legislation. Although, of course, world cultural heritage should be protected, it is short-sighted to not even allow the possibility of military necessity to outweigh our duty to protect high-value cultural property. The UNESCO conventions already dictate that one can only be justified in attacking or targeting a site of cultural heritage if ‘there is no feasible alternative available to obtain a similar military advantage’ [1] Therefore, the proposition are only making a difference to cases where there is no feasible alternative available. This could prove disastrous and create a significant limitation on the capacity of a state’s armed forces.  The danger becomes increasingly apparent when one considers that it is highly unlikely that extremist opposing forces and insurgents like the Taliban will adhere to such international law. This is particularly crucial given that the majority of wars fought now by the west are against insurgencies. Such opposing forces will disregard the new international law and endeavour to exploit this to gain a strategic advantage over Western forces. Insurgents may deliberately choose to hide, locate their base or just pass through sites of high cultural value to ensure their safety from western airstrikes and attacks. Allowing this to take place would severely hamper the ability of the west to fight against insurgencies (an already incredibly difficult task in itself). For example in 2000 Lashkar-e-Toiba militants attacked the Red Fort, which was at the time was in part a barracks for the Indian army, killing three in a shootout within the fort. [2] The Red Fort is itself today a world heritage site; would this mean that were a similar attack to happen the Indian security services could do nothing to counter the attack? [3]  [1] UNESCO, “Declaration Concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage”, 17 October 2003, accessed 20/9/12,   [2] BBC News, ‘Police hunt Red Fort raiders’, 23 December 2000,   [3] UNESCO, “Red Fort Complex”,