Professor Bennoune Speaks at High-Level United Nations Event

Professor Karima Bennoune spoke at "Destruction of Cultural Heritage: Contextualizing the human rights aspect with a view to prevention or mitigation," an event sponsored by the Permanent Missions of Brazil, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Greece, Iraq, Ireland, Poland, Serbia, and Switzerland to the United Nations and the Geneva Academy. Held on February 29 at the UN Office in Geneva, the event included remarks by Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Alexandros M. Zenon, Deputy Foreign Minister of Cyprus, Iaonnis Amanatidis, Deputy Foreign Minister of Greece, and Kristin Hausler, Dorset Senior Research Fellow in Public International Law. 

The event, held on the opening day of the 31st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, was attended by diplomats and Non-Governmental Organizations from many countries.  Professor Bennoune discussed the intentional destruction of cultural heritage as a human rights issue, which is the theme of her first report as UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights.  In particular, she called for support of at-risk cultural heritage professionals. Remembering fallen Syrian archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad, she urged that "we must not wait to rally to the cause of at-risk cultural heritage defenders until we are mourning their deaths."

Karima Bennoune is an author, lecturer, teacher, and international law scholar as well as the first Arab-American to be honored with the Derrick A. Bell Award from the Section on Minority Groups of the Association of American Law Schools. In October 2015, she was appointed UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights.