President Peter Stone was honoured to give the keynote address at the international Cultural Property Protection Conference organised by the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest in November, where he spoke on “Protecting cultural property in armed conflict and following disasters. The work of the Blue Shield“.
The event was attended by a brilliant line up of speakers from leading institutions around the world all working on Cultural Property Protection, who came together to explore new ideas and key research and findings from the field on this critical topic. Speakers included a number of leading Hungarian cultural, security, and defence institutions, and international organisations such as ICOM-ICMS/ the Victoria&Albert Museum; Légion étrangère, the British Army Cultural Property Protection Unit; the U.S Army; Royal Netherlands Army; NATO – Carabinieri; the Syrian Directorate General of Antiquities & Museums; Santagata Foundation for the Economics of Culture; Center for Cultural Property Protection, University for Continuing Education Krems; Aurora project; ICCROM; ICOMOS-ICORP; Maidan Museu / ICOM DRMC; Cultural Emergency Response; ALIPH Foundation; Deutsches Archäologisches Institut; OSCE; Bavarian State Criminal Police Office; Unit for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police; Heritage for Peace; Qatar University; and Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.
It was a real privilege to attend this event, which was so well organised and had so many excellent speakers from such diverse backgrounds. If cultural property protection is to be effective, it must begin in peace, and it must involve a partnership between the cultural sector, the armed forces, emergency services, police, borders and customs, working together and learning from each other. This conference was a fantastic example of the creation of these partnerships in action. The Blue Shield is ready and eager to support Hungary in its cultural property protection efforts.
