There is a need for the international community to show solidarity for restoration of cultural heritage in countries undergoing armed conflict, internal violence, and transition from authoritarian regimes that has been destroyed due to armed conflict through the adoption of a new International Solidarity Paradigm to address challenges during conflict and afterwards.

There is a protracted phenomenon of bombing and shelling of schools, universities, libraries, central archives, archeological sites, landmarks, palaces, fountains, churches, temples, mosques, shrines, and cemeteries in conflict zones that results in the complete loss of cultural heritage. This includes loss of literature, poetry, music, visual arts, artifacts, architecture, and other forms of cultural expression. 

There is an imperative need to restore cultural heritage through the adoption of an International Solidarity Cultural Program to enable the recording of music and poetry, the printing of literature, and the provision of scholarships and fellowships to artists to enable artists and writers to create their work in safe spaces. 

Artists, writers, scholars, and cultural actors need freedom to engage in expression without fear of repression. There is a marked increase in the number of artists (writers, poets, painters, musicians, singers, dancers, photographers, historians, filmmakers, visual artists) who are subject to attack, threat to life, or denial of medical assistance, food, or water in conflict zones. Artists communicate the identity and history of peoples- their work is tied to the transcendental qualities of being human and part of humanity.

States have a good faith obligation to assess artists and cultural actors for asylum based on recognition of their membership in a particular social group according to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees. They may also be subject to intersectional discrimination due to their race, religion, nationality, sexual identity, political opinion, or other ground and hence may meet other categories within the definition of a refugee.  States may also design special Cultural Solidarity Humanitarian protection programs for artists, writers, scholars, cultural actors, and their families who are under threat of intimidation or persecution for their cultural expressions or who are unable to leave their countries.

States should also pursue programs to promote the role of artists and other cultural actors in the transitional period in the context of peace consolidation in the home country, incorporating them into Cultural Solidarity for Peace projects involving truth telling, reconciliation, and reintegration processes to promote a culture of peace, forgiveness, and mutual respect between different societal groups.

A nation’s cultural identity should never be erased and the destruction of cultural heritage should be condemned as a form of dehumanization. Restoration of cultural heritage should be pursued as an important mechanism of solidarity peacebuilding within societies divided by conflict.