Cultural Heritage Destruction in ICC with a Look to the Al Mahdi Case

For the first time in the history of international criminal proceedings, International Criminal Court, alongside the gradual expansion of conventional international criminal law, has taken a few steps further from previous trials in the case of Al Faqi AL Mahdi and issued a ruling about the historic heritage reparation. In this article, we critically examined the reparation order of the ICC in the case of Al Mahdi. In this landmark verdict, regardless of direct or indirect damages, the court identified the residents of Timbuktu in the first place and Malian people and the international community in the second step as victims of cultural heritage destruction. The court has considered limited criminal responsibility for Mr. Al Mahdi. He has been convicted of war crimes, and his undertakings must be fulfilled by him. He is obliged to compensate for the mental and economic losses and to restore the destroyed buildings. Due to the symbolic importance and prominent role of this verdict in the future of international criminal proceedings, this article aims at analyzing the historic achievements of the court with a critical approach.