The International Criminal Court issued the first conviction for destruction of cultural goods

The condemnation of the International Criminal Court, issued against an Islamic fundamentalist for the destruction of monuments protected by UNESCO, which took place in the African country of Mali, is the cornerstone for international jurisprudence and provides the basis for more complex forms of protection artistic heritage. If in some states, especially in the West, the existing legislation protecting important historical artifacts and art, until now the International Criminal Court had never ruled on this matter, equating as war crimes the destruction of the artistic heritage. The relevance of the judgment of the International Criminal Court must be seen in a much broader view than the one referred to by the judgment; In fact, the sad practice of destroying historical monuments of immense cultural value has become customary in extremist groups, not just Muslims, to justify an alleged religious superiority. Parallel to the destruction phenomenon, it has developed what the despoliation of archaeological sites, according to feed a market of artistic contraband. Ultimately the religious justification is served to assert direct rash to strengthen the image of the authors groups of the destruction and, at the same time, has opened a new way of funding. Some human rights activists have rightly pointed out that the defendant received the sentence only for the destruction of cultural heritage, without paying anything for the crimes against people, such as rapes and enslavement of many people; These criticisms are right, because the accused had to be tried and convicted for these crimes, but it is a relief to the case, which does not affect the historical value of a judgment, of international value, in fact, that for the first time condemned violence to the cultural heritage, designed, not only as a fact tort in its own right, as far as damage done, both to the community of the state in which they occurred, which, in a broader sense, the entire international community. It is especially because of this second aspect, a real revolution, because it is assumed the discriminating idea that cultural heritage, understood in the broadest sense of the definition, belong to the whole world community. This means, among other things, that, for those states that do not have a specific law, the International Criminal Court can intervene in defense of damaged cultural heritage. Employ as a fundamental principle that good art as such is artistic heritage of all humanity, recognizes the significant importance of the historical artifact, introducing judicial sense, that the damage to any such cultural property is a crime against ' all humanity. The scope of this decision could and should have practical implications for the protection of monuments, such as the creation of international bodies responsible for this function, as already happens in some countries, such as Italy; or at least employment in this sense the United Nations forces or for all other nations, engaged in peace functions or as a contrast to terrorist forces. The judgment implicitly acknowledges the condemnation of the corruption of their own artistic heritage of a given area or an ethnic or religious group as violence against these case by third parties, in this case the Islamic extremists, done with the intent to cancel the testimonies and cultural history, that is, aspects that go beyond the single monument, but that result with its destruction, a well-defined segment of social importance, considered the other side, compared to those who carry out the destruction. It appears risky, albeit with all the necessary caveats, to compare the destruction of the historical memory of a community, with the will to practice ethnic cleansing, of which, indeed, precisely this practice has become part. THE importance of the decision of the International Criminal Court thus becomes a starting point for the protection of historical memory and its importance, within a framework that recognizes the importance of every single culture in the world community, just because it has contributed to the development training.