Space for Heritage: What (Legal) Framework for the Use of Space Remote Sensing for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Disasters?

The protection of cultural heritage represents a constantly increasing challenge for international community since it faces a combination of threats connected to natural processes, especially due to the augmented frequency of disasters (i.e., flood and earthquake), and to anthropogenic activities, including aggravated human disturbances (urbanization and resource exploitation). In order to respond to the growing needs related to cultural heritage conservation, innovative sciences and technologies are helpful means to reconstruct the past, monitor the condition of monuments and works of arts, restore and preserve them. Earth Observation (EO) data, in this regard, can help by monitoring the degradation of sites, the level of air pollution in the surrounding areas, the coastal erosion or it can help in the discovery of heritage hidden below the ground’s surface and revealing of lost landscapes. This technology can also provide benefits in terms of risk assessment through the use of change maps, that track the changes occurring within an area of interest during a certain period, and preventive investigations for the realisation of infrastructures. It is remarkable the coincidence that the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage was adopted by the UNESCO General Conference in 1972, the same year that the first civilian Earth observation satellite was launched, initially called ERTS (Earth Resources Technology Satellite) and later Landsat. Nowadays, remote sensing applications are increasingly used for aiding in disaster management and their utility for the exploration, identification and documentation and in monitoring archaeological heritage is twofold. On one hand, they cover broad areas instantly, enriching the information on cultural heritage sites in their context through landscape coverage, and, on the other hand, in the context of monitoring sites that are difficult to access due to physical conditions or the context of a crisis, disaster or conflict, remote sensing from space has the unique merit of not being intrusive with respect to States and of providing images - which can be available free of charge - whose reliability is guaranteed by the public nature of the organization that produces them (space agencies directly or through a dedicated center). The main international regulatory framework for remote sensing activities is represented by the Declaration of Principles on Remote Sensing adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1986. Belonging to the Assembly’s “declarations of principles”, they are nothing more than recommendations, but on the basis of State practice one can assume that the legal status of the principles is quite variable, spacing from the consolidated freedom of observation of the Earth to the debated principle of mutual information between States. Such difference in intensity impacts on the use of remote sensing applications for disaster management of cultural properties. Furthermore, it should be highlighted that while the Declaration contains principles dealing with information and data transfer related to environmental hazards (see Principle X and XI), similar provisions are not foreseen with regard to cultural heritage sites. Even the system under the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters of 1999, if it can be applied to heritage protection, it can only be used for disaster management caused by natural phenomena or technological accidents. The paper addresses the main legal, institutional, and operative challenges concerning the access to remote sensing technologies and the use of data thereby collected for the protection of cultural and natural heritage, in the light of the emerging cross-fertilization between international cultural heritage law, space law and international disaster law.