Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such aswar,[1]natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective),[2] orrioting.[3] The proceeds of all these activities can be described asbooty,loot,plunder,spoils, orpillage.[4][5]
Throughout history, the practice of war looting was often considered a customary right of victorious armies until the development of modern international humanitarian law.[6]
Looting by a victorious army during war has been a common practice throughout recorded history.[7] In the wake of theNapoleonic Wars and particularly afterWorld War II, norms against wartime plunder became widely accepted.[7] In modernarmed conflicts, looting is prohibited byinternational law, and constitutes awar crime.[8][9] The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 explicitly prohibited pillage and looting, codifying earlier efforts to restrain the practice in European warfare.[10]
During a disaster,police andmilitary forces are sometimes unable to prevent looting when they are overwhelmed by humanitarian or combat concerns, or they cannot be summoned because of damaged communications infrastructure. Especially during natural disasters, many civilians may find themselves forced to take what does not belong to them in order to survive.[11] How to respond to that and where the line between unnecessary "looting" and necessary "scavenging" lies are often dilemmas for governments.[12][13] In other cases, looting may be tolerated or even encouraged by governments for political or other reasons, including religious, social or economic ones.
Looting by a victorious army during war has been a common practice throughout recorded history.[7] Foot soldiers viewed plunder as a way to supplement an often-meagre income[14] and transferred wealth became part of the celebration of victory. In the wake of theNapoleonic Wars and particularly afterWorld War II, norms against wartime plunder became widely accepted.[7]
In the upper ranks, the proud exhibition of the loot plundered formed an integral part of the typicalRoman triumph, andGenghis Khan was not unusual in proclaiming that the greatest happiness was "to vanquish your enemies ... to rob them of their wealth".[15]
In ancient times, looting was sometimes prohibited due to religious concerns. For example,King Clovis I of the Franks, forbade his soldiers to loot when they campaigned nearSt Martin's shrine in Tours, for fear of offending the saint.[16]
In warfare in ancient times, the spoils of war included the defeated populations, which were oftenenslaved. Women and children might become absorbed into the victorious country's population, asconcubines,eunuchs and slaves.[17][18] In other pre-modern societies, objects made of precious metals were the preferred target of war looting, largely because of their ease of portability. In many cases, looting offered an opportunity to obtaintreasures and works of art that otherwise would not have been obtainable. Beginning in theearly modern period and reaching its peak in theNew Imperialism era,European colonial powers frequently looted areas they captured during military campaigns against non-European states.[19] In the 1930s, and even more so during theSecond World War,Nazi Germany engaged in large-scale and organizedlooting of art and property, particularlyin Nazi-occupied Poland.[20][21] Soviet Uniondid likewise.[22] On the smaller level, looting was done by other Allied forces too.[23]
In 1990 and 1991, during theGulf War,Saddam Hussein's soldiers caused significant damage to both Kuwaiti and Saudi infrastructure. They also stole from private companies and homes.[27][28] In April 2003, looters broke into the National Museum of Iraq, and thousands of artefacts remain missing.[29][30]
Theoretically, to prevent such looting, unclaimed property is moved to the custody of theCustodian of Enemy Property, to be handled until returned to its owners.
The International Criminal Court has prosecuted acts of pillage and looting as war crimes, including during conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo.[37]
Despite international prohibitions against the practice of looting, the ease with which it can be done means that it remains relatively common, particularly during outbreaks ofcivil unrest during which rules of war may not yet apply. The2011 Egyptian Revolution, for example, caused a significant increase in the looting ofantiquities from archaeological sites in Egypt, as the government lost the ability to protect the sites.[38] Other acts of modern looting, such as the looting and destruction of artifacts from theNational Museum of Iraq byIslamic State militants, can be used as an easy way to express contempt for the concept of rules of war altogether.[39]
In the case of a sudden change in a country or region's government, it can be difficult to determine what constitutes looting as opposed to a new government taking custody of the property in question. This can be especially difficult if the new government is only partially recognized at the time the property is moved, as was the case during the2021 Taliban offensive, during which a number of artifacts and a large amount of property of former government officials who had fled the country fell into the hands of theTaliban before they were recognized as the legitimate government ofAfghanistan by other countries. Further looting and burning of civilian homes and villages has been defended by the Taliban as within their right as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.[40]
Looting can also be common in cases wherecivil unrest is contained largely within the borders of a country or during peacetime. Riots in the wake of the2020 George Floyd protests in numerous American cities led to increased amounts of looting, as looters took advantage of the delicate political situation and civil unrest surrounding the riots themselves.[41][42][43] Up to 175Target stores closed Nationwide during the disturbances.[44][45]
In 2022, international observers accusedRussia of engaging inlarge scale looting during theRusso-Ukrainian War, reporting the widespread looting of everything from food to industrial equipment.[47] Despite the publication of numerous photos and videos by Ukrainian journalists and civilians, numerous Russian commanders have denied these claims. International observers have theorized that this looting is either the result of direct orders, despite to Russia's claims to the contrary, or due to Russian soldiers not being issued with adequate food and other resources by their commanders.[48] On 18 November 2022, theUniversity of Miami estimated that Russian forces in Ukraine had destroyed, pillaged, and looted at least 40 museums in Ukraine.[49]
The term "looting" is also sometimes used to refer toantiquities being removed from countries by unauthorized people, either domestic people breaking the law seeking monetary gain or foreign nations, which are usually more interested in prestige or previously, "scientific discovery". An example might be the removal of the contents of Egyptian tombs that were transported to museums across theWest.[50]
Many factories in therebels' zone ofAleppo during theSyrian Civil War were reported as being plundered and their assets transferred abroad.[53][54] Agricultural products and electronic power plants were also seized, to be sold elsewhere.[55][56]
TheBeit Ghazaleh Museum of Aleppo was looted of its contents prior to being hit by explosions (photo 2017)
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gen. Omar N. Bradley, and Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr., inspect art treasures stolen by Germans and hidden in salt mine in Germany (1945)
Looters attempting to enter a cycle shop in North London during the2011 England riots
^Gregory of Tours.A History of the Franks. Pantianos classics, 1916
^John K. Thorton (1996). "African Background in American Colonization". In Stanley L. Engerman, Robert E. Gallman (ed.),The Cambridge Economic History of the United States, Cambridge University Press, 1996,ISBN0521394422, p. 87. "African states waged war to acquire slaves ... raids that appear to have been more concerned with obtaining loot (including slaves) than other objectives."
^John Bagot Glubb,The Empire of the Arabs, Hodder and Stoughton, 1963, p. 283. "... thousand Christian captives formed part of the loot and were subsequently sold as slaves in the markets of Syria".
Abudu, Margaret, et al., "Black Ghetto Violence: A Case Study Inquiry into the Spatial Pattern of Four Los Angeles Riot Event-Types", 44Social Problems 483 (1997)
Curvin, Robert and Bruce Porter (1979),Blackout Looting
Dynes, Russell & Enrico L. Quarantelli, "What Looting in Civil Disturbances Really Means", inModern Criminals 177 (James F. Short Jr., ed., 1970)
Kończal, Kornelia (2017),Politics of Plunder. Post-German Property and the Reconstruction of East Central Europe after the Second World War. EUI Florence.
Kończal, Kornelia (2014),Das Schreiben und das Schweigen über die Plünderung des deutschen Eigentums. Die identitätsstiftende Figur des szabrownik im Nachkriegspolen, in: Włodzimierz Bialik, Czesław Karolak und Maria Wojtczak (ed.): Ungeduld der Erkenntnis. Eine klischeewidrige Festschrift für Hubert Orłowski, Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. M., p. 155–170.
Kończal, Kornelia (2017),The Quest for German Property in East Central Europe after 1945: The Semantics of Plunder and the Sense of Reconstruction, in: Yvonne Kleinmann among others (ed.): Imaginations and Configurations of Polish Society. From the Middle Ages through the Twentieth Century, Göttingen: Wallstein, p. 291–312.
Kończal, Kornelia (2021),German Property and the Reconstruction of East Central Europe after 1945: Politics, Practices and Pitfalls of Confiscation, in: European Review of History. Revue européenne d’histoire 28 (2), p. 278–300.
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