Iranians all over the world are concerned about their culture and the manner in which we may preserve and promote our incredible heritage.

This is in line with our cultural rights, part of the positive human rights the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights promotes the world over. 

A top legal expert of the United Nations International Criminal Court, Dr. Hirad Abtahi, happens to be an Iranian-Canadian whose work enriches the work of the court as well as academic and educational circles, on cultural rights.

In his latest publication, he offers an incredible resource that compares and contrasts the practice of State responsibility-based or individual criminal responsibility-based mechanisms, with respect to the cause, means and consequences of attacks targeting culture. This study shows how, in most cases of use of violence, attacks targeting culture constitute “the elephant in the room”. It also looks at the direct or indirect targeting of culture’s tangible and intangible components, as a potent tool to either directly aim at eradicating undesired manifestations of culture or to indirectly instil fear within the adversary’s ranks. 

For the first time, a book dispels common misperceptions, emphasises state responsibility and offers a systematic review of the practices involved and how attacking culture may be both tangible-centred and anthropo/heritage-centred, in terms of both typology of damage and its victims. It proposes a set of tools to better process the adjudication of the causes, means and consequences of attacks targeting culture.

We will be discussing the importance of preserving and protecting culture during our webinar. Please feel free to submit questions by emailing info@persia.education.