Heritage Destruction in Syria and Northern Iraq: Which is the Applicable Law?

The paper aims at reconstructing the applicable legal framework to the widespread destruction of cultural heritage. At first, a legal classification of the conflict under international humanitarian law is provided, with the aim to identify the applicable law. In the second part of the paper, the problem of heritage destruction in Syria is dealt under a double perspective: (i) framing the obligations and potential responsibility fo States (the Syrian Arab Republic and eventually other foreign States involved in the hostilities); and (ii) individual criminal responsibility arising for the perpetrated acts of destruction of cultural heritage.