In 2012, the armed Islamist group Ansar Dine seized Timbuktu in Mali, a major trading hub and an intellectual and spiritual centre in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They destroyed 14 of the 16 mausoleums listed as world heritage sites and burned thousands of holy manuscripts. Three years later, in September 2015, the Niger authorities surrendered suspect Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi to the International Criminal Court (ICC). He was accused of committing the war crime of intentionally attacking historic monuments, and he is the first suspect in history to face a trial for the destruction of cultural heritage. The prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bansouda, clarified in a statement: “Intentional attacks against historic monuments and buildings dedicated to religion are serious crimes under the Rome Statute—the founding treaty of the ICC … Such attacks affect humanity as a whole. We must stand up to the destruction and defacing of our common heritage.” ^{Footnote 1}

The first prosecution of this particular type of war crime illustrates how timely the volume International Law for Common Goods is. Edited by Federico Lenzerini and Ana Filipa Vrdoljak, the central theme of the book is the protection of common interests of humanity through international law. It is based on the outcome of a symposium hosted by the Academy of European Law at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence in 2012. The symposium and the book are a celebration of the work of Francesco Francioni, who completed his tenure as professor of international law and human rights at the EUI and dedicated his academic career to the three common goods that are the focus of this volume: human rights, culture, and nature. The book is divided into three parts, each consisting of six to eight chapters dedicated to the international legal framework of each common good. The result—468 pages and 20 chapters, plus an introduction and epilogue—is a refreshing shift away from dominant Anglo-Saxon perspectives in academia, with the majority of the contributors based in Italy, specifically at the EUI in Florence and at the University of Siena.

The ICC’s recent detainment of a suspect for the destruction of cultural heritage is a first. It fits within the trend identified throughout this volume in which international legal cases concerned with human rights, cultural heritage, and the environment are slowly—but certainly—becoming more prevalent and successful. Bruno Simma and Abdulqawi Yusuf explain how this has happened within the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the African Human Rights Commission respectively. Simma covers a series of case law that demonstrates the increasing explicit engagement of the ICJ with human rights. Yusuf’s chapter focuses on the unique recognition of peoples’ rights in the African Charter. ^{Footnote 2} He shows how the African Human Rights Commission has been attempting to transform this quantitatively important coverage into “a qualitative development of the recognition and protection of such rights at the international level” (60). Developments in the field of cultural heritage are addressed by Siegfried Weissner, who argues that the recognition of the importance of cultural diversity has contributed to the case of indigenous peoples, whose rights have become less contested and whose activism has culminated in the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. ^{Footnote 3}

Other contributors to the volume focus on what should change in order to improve the protection of common goods within international law. Particularly pertinent is the argument of Massimilliano Montini, who considers how the paradigm of ecological sustainability could improve the effectiveness of international environmental law and replace the current more anthropocentric approach. Ecological sustainability refers “to the need for human civilization to live in harmony with nature and the eco-systems which enable life on the planet and support human development” (275). This is an important reconceptualization. Arguably, ecological sustainability as a baseline for international environmental law is necessary in order to guarantee any common good of humankind, including human rights and cultural heritage. Unfortunately, the examples that Montini discusses indicate the risk that environmental law is evolving in a different and less sustainable way.

The overarching argument of the volume is for the need to move beyond state-centric international law because common goods and common values cannot adequately be protected in such a Westphalian system. The various case studies show how states often limit or prevent the protection of rights, cultural heritage, and the environment. For example, Emanuela Orlanda points out that the emerging idea of the environment as a global common good is at odds with the international law framework because this framework is “anchored in the idea of territorial jurisdiction, whereby environmental damage is relevant only in so far as it becomes a transboundary interference in another State’s territory” (417).

A different challenge is presented by the reluctance of states to adopt certain standards, and this situation is illustrated by Tullio Scovazzi, who explains the existence of two conflicting regimes that are of concern to underwater cultural heritage. Although, the 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage is more suitable to protect this type of heritage as a common good than the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, it is yet to gain broad acceptance by states. ^{Footnote 4}

However, a shift is arguably taking place, as shown by Ricardo Pisillo Mazzeschi, who argues that human rights theory has an impact on international law, which is increasingly seen as being applicable not just to states but also to international organizations, individuals, and other non-state actors. Moreover, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak traces how developments in international cultural heritage law in the latter part of the twentieth century indicate a decentring of the interests of states and an increasing recognition of cultural diversity as a common good.

The book consists of detailed and meticulous research on a wide range of legal instruments and covers an abundance of case law. As such, it provides a good overview of the current status of human rights, culture, and nature as common goods in international law, and the volume will be of interest to anyone who wants to learn more about such pressing contemporary concerns from a legal point of view. However, it needs to be pointed out that some prior knowledge of international law will be helpful to the reader, since a relatively large amount of legal jargon is used. As such, the volume is most suitable for students on postgraduate levels and researchers with a basic legal background.

Considering the importance of the themes of the volume, this strictly legal focus can be limiting. In several cases, I was left wanting more information of a broader type. For example, when Yusuf discusses a specific case in which the African Human Rights Commission declared that “the right to development of the people of Darfur was violated,” his point is used to show how the commission has recognized peoples’ rights, which is an innovative and unique development in international law (55). However, it leaves me wondering what the impact of this declaration was. Did it lead to any concrete actions in Sudan? Can such declarations prevent future human rights violations? Similarly, when Vrdoljak points out that Europe and Africa—“two continents which have been riddled with violent ethnic and religious conflict in recent decades”—have recently adopted multilateral conventions promoting cultural diversity, my interest is triggered, and I would have liked to learn more about on-the-ground implementation of such conventions and what effect they have on how people engage with each other (170). Is there empirical evidence that such conventions lead to more mutual respect?

A further critique I have concerns the unproblematic use of highly contested terms. The structure of the book reinforces the Cartesian dualism of nature and culture, which has been recognized as being unhelpful for the protection of both cultural heritage and the environment. ^{Footnote 5} Most critically, with the exception of some brief reflections by Francesco Francioni in the epilogue, the volume contains little contemplation on the idea of common goods. Can we speak of common goods in a culturally diverse world, where people have widely differing understandings of their world and conflicting interests? Human rights, cultural heritage, and the environment are taken for granted as common goods, despite the existence of a wide range of literature that shows the contestation of the universality of such values. ^{Footnote 6} To use the example of Timbuktu again, the spokesman of Ansar Dine allegedly told the press that “there is no world heritage. It does not exist. Infidels must not get involved in our business.” ^{Footnote 7} Contestation of such common goods is not limited to Islamist groups. The likelihood increases that what constitutes as common goods and what does not will be disputed, particularly when we move beyond a state-centric focus.

The difficulty of implementing and enforcing international law to protect such common goods can to some extent be explained by the contested nature of the terms human rights, culture, and nature. However, the legal approach of the book does not allow for elaboration on such philosophical questions, and the reader will have to look elsewhere for a broader and more critical understanding of some of the pressing issues the book covers. Since the International Journal of Cultural Property is not exclusively concerned with law, this fact is worth pointing out. Yet, this limitation does not take away from the fact that International Law for Common Goods is a well-timed and recommendable volume for a comprehensive legal perspective on human rights, cultural heritage, and the environment.