From the past to the future: Protecting Afghanistan’s cultural heritage – progress, fears, and hopes

Abstract Afghanistan’s cultural heritage has faced extreme challenges over recent decades, experiencing the simultaneous impacts of numerous disasters such as war, the looting of museums, illegal excavations, and deliberate destruction caused by extreme ideological beliefs – the last diminishing not only Afghanistan’s but also the world’s cultural heritage. However, these incidents and experiences have also provided lessons for the protection of cultural heritage. Despite progress since 2004, the return of the Taliban and their treatment of Afghanistan’s cultural heritage during their previous regime have raised growing concerns for the country’s cultural heritage and fears of that sad history repeating itself. In this article, we examine the progress made in protecting the rights related to cultural heritage in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, especially in relation to its protection and safeguarding age. To this end, it examines the basis of the current cultural heritage legislation, the identification and registration of heritage elements, the legal tools for regulating heritage, and how its protection is monitored and evaluated. Addressing the challenges that this process faced, it questions what responsibilities should be placed on the Taliban following their recent return to power.